


Second to Last Chance

by AlleycatAngst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hunter Adam, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Second Chances, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleycatAngst/pseuds/AlleycatAngst
Summary: Sam Winchester shot himself in the head nine years ago, leaving Adam and Dean to pick up the pieces of their lives and take on their father's hunt for the yellow-eyed demon. Now they've been zapped back into the past, just in time to stop their teenage brother from pulling the trigger.





	1. Left

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Needed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/930891) by [noobieninja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noobieninja/pseuds/noobieninja). 
  * Inspired by [Suicidal!Sam Compendium](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/291453) by ithuriel788. 



> NoobieNinja's 'Needed' is fantastic and should be read immediately. Without delay. This is also posted at Fanfiction.net with far less formatting and far more errors. Special thanks to ithuriel778, the curator of the suicidal!Sam compendiums.

Adam woke to Kansas playing softly on the radio and realized he must have fallen asleep somewhere in Oklahoma. He wiped at his eyes and took in the scenery as Impala roared softly under the two Winchester brothers. Dean's music was turned low, soft and lulling.

"I can take over at the next gas station," he offered.

Dean grunted, as much of an answer as he was going to get. Adam pulled the laptop from the backseat and opened the file Bobby had sent them the night before. Witches by the MO and nasty ones at that, but a routine hunt nevertheless.

Well, it should be routine hunt, but they both knew what day it was, and Dean was as predictable as clockwork. He would start at midnight when he would swing into the nearest hotel and leave Adam to protest weakly as he found the nearest bar, drink himself silly, probably pick a fight with some poor bystander playing pool, and then stumble home at noon to sleep off as much of the hangover as possible before climbing back onto a barstool and drink himself to sleep again.

Hence the nap Adam had been taking in the car. He hated listening to his oldest brother retch in the bathroom when all he could do is sit on the bed, making no comment. It had been over nine years since Sam's death, and three since their father's, and even with just the two of them in the car they had grown up in, there were some things the Winchesters didn’t talk about.

Sometimes Adam felt that the half-brother thing made things a little harder. Sometimes Dean got upset for no reason and kept all the guns locked away. He took Adam out to drink, or to a kid's theme park, or sometimes they just parked the Impala and looked out over the scenery, talking about everything and nothing. They avoided only one subject. Sam.

Adam remembered when he was a kid, and Sam had been this mysterious force of nature, the smartest person Adam ever knew. Sam could plan, and think, and just silently… understand. None of them had ever known he was in trouble until... Well, until Sam as curled up in the bathtub, his brain all over the… all over the…

He swallowed and blinked down at the screen in his lap. It had been nine goddamn years. He wasn't a child anymore. He barely remembered Sam's face, and yet he just kept bringing this stuff up every year. They were never going to get over it if they kept fixating, kept remembering.

Adam closed his eyes, trusting Dean to wake him when they reached the promised gas station.

###

**13 Years Ago**

"Sam? Why do we have to move all the time?"

Eleven year old Sam looked over to where his older brother was lying on the next bed and remembered asking him the same question. His hand tightened reflexively on Adam's forehead as he gave the same answer he had received all those years ago, "leave it Adam, you don't wanna know."

His younger brother huffed impatiently, but seemed too tired to follow up. Adam was just starting to see that they weren't like other families. The youngest Winchester was beginning to understand that they were different. He had even realized the hierarchy in the family, was starting to look past (through) Sam to Dean and John.

Sam held his breath and felt the tears burning behind his eyes. He wanted to tighten his arms around his brother again, but Adam might complain or shift away. He stared into the dimly lit, blank walls of the achingly familiar motel room walls. They were all the same, no matter where the small, strange family went.

His arm was going numb from where Adam was lying on it, but Sam just left it that way. He wanted his little brother to just stay here with him, unknowing, unaware that the monsters were real, that someday he would be expected to face them, to fight them, because nobody else would. A solitary tear tipped over the bridge of his nose and fell into the blankets. He just wanted to grow up away from all this insanity, blood thirst, and his family held together by one revenge. Adam and Dean didn't deserve that.

###

**NOW**

Adam and Dean stopped at a hotel, and Dean left immediately, throwing his duffle on the nearest bed and slipping back out of the door with a muffled: "I'll be back soon."

That was a lie. And Dean never lied to him, except of course on this day. The anniversary of Sam's death. Adam dropped his bag next to the bedside table and slumped onto the bed that hadn't been claimed by Dean's duffel.

"Hey Sam," he said to empty room.

The air conditioning switched on, startling him. He laughed shakily, and shook his head.

"Getting paranoid these days," he said, "but that's not your fault Sam. I think I've started to understand why you did it. This whole life is pretty fucked up, and I think… I think I would have done the same thing. Well, I'm thinking—it doesn't matter." He shook his head, looking at the dull green carpet. He remembered Sam, a happy kid with wide eyes and a pout that pissed off and endeared him all at the same time.

"I miss you, and I'm sorry it's been so long since I talked to you, but I thought that maybe not talking to you would stop it from hurting. Of course it hasn't, but it was worth a try, right?" he laughed humorlessly. "I guess I just wanted to tell you that I still love you. I hope you're happier now, I know you've gone somewhere good, where none of this can touch you anymore, even if that meant leaving me—us."

Feeling foolish and a little sappy Adam climbed onto the bed, and switched on the TV. He would wait for Dean to come home, in case his brother needed help finding the bathroom through his haze of alcohol.

**12 Years Ago**

It was Sam’s fault that Adam found out about the monsters. The youngest Winchester was only six-years old and the ghost of a little girl stole him away to keep him as a playmate. She enticed him to taking the ribbon cursed with her spirit, and walked him away from the motel room and the safety of his family.

It had been on Sam's watch. He had looked away for a minute, had just left to get them both a soda from the vending machines, and when he had come back Adam was gone. Between Dean trashing the motel room and John's tense, angry questions, Sam felt himself shrink just a little bit smaller, hate himself just a little more.

While they went hunting, he waited in the motel room, tense, afraid, and utterly alone. Dean and John came back with Adam crying like the world had ended. There was no more pretending after that, no more questions that had to go unanswered. Adam had to know the dangers, had to stop trusting and start being very, very afraid.

Sam was the only one the little boy let into the bathroom. They huddled in the tub together, Sam apologizing over and over for not being able to protect him. Adam cried himself sick, and Sam held onto him, feeling numb.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Adam asked, when he calmed down enough to start speaking.

Sam sighed, ruffling Adam's silky hair, but said nothing. Adam would grow up just like him, hating the life, wondering why it was his fight. “I didn’t want to scare you,” he said softly.

“Okay,” Adam said.

He slept in the bathroom all night with the light on and John made Sam come out to sleep on the bed—hoping Adam would get cold or uncomfortable and come out as well. Sam watched the crack under the door unblinking, feeling the crushing weight of guilt and sadness. He hated, hated, _hated_ this hell.

The next day they were in the car. Dad and Dean joked in the front, their conversation sounding brittle. Adam stared out of the window the entire day, resisting all attempts at conversation. When they reached Bobby's, he disappeared into the house with barely a hello to the older hunter. Sam sat at the table in the kitchen and didn't move for a very long time.

"You okay?" someone finally asked him.

It was Dean, sitting on the counter and munching on an apple. John left a few hours after dropping them off. Either he didn't want to deal with Adam's newfound knowledge, or he just couldn't look at Sam. Sam would bet on the latter, and he hated that it would hurt Adam. The youngest Winchester needed his father and Sam had driven him away.

"Fine," Sam said.

"How's Adam?"

"Getting used to the idea of monsters.”

Dean nodded amiably, still working his way through the apple. Bobby had probably jumped at the chance to give them some proper food, rather than the junkfood John brought home every night.

“What happened when you found him? How did… how did dad… explain?" Sam asked, finally finding enough energy to pour himself a glass of milk and sit at the table like someone who didn’t feel like the world was crashing around their ears.

Both of them could hear the sound of Bobby beating some car back into shape, and the tinny strains of some country band keeping him company. He thought for a moment that his brother wasn't going to answer, but Dean broke the comfortable silence quickly, as if he had to force the words out. "Dad told him about the ghoul that got his mother."

Sam nodded glumly, he had suspected as much. "And the ghost?"

"Tried to push him off a cliff to keep him around as a ghost. Dad nearly didn't get there in time."

Sam cringed, feeling the ice clench around his heart. If he had just been watching as carefully as he should have been, none of this would have happened, Adam would be playing outside, trying to find something to show Dean.

The eldest Winchester sibling seemed to sense some of Sam's thoughts, because he slipped off the counter and joined him at the table. "It's not your fault Sam. She killed a few hunters before we got there, she knew how to cover her tracks."

Sam shrugged, not meeting Dean's eyes. He swallowed a mouthful of milk, trying to rid himself of the feeling that maybe they would all be better off without him. Dean had made sure that Sam didn't learn about the things that went bump in the night until he could handle it.

Here was Sam, going through the same trials as his older brother, but he was failing every test.

Sam was just going to get everyone killed, the same way that he had gotten his mother killed… just by being there. He was a menace, a danger, and at some level he knew he was never going to change. Not the way John and Dean wanted him to.

So Adam knew about monsters. Everything else was going to change now.

And it did.

###

**NOW**

Dean stumbled back into the room, and immediately Adam was on his feet, clicking the TV off. His older brother was back hours before he should be, not that Adam was complaining He was getting lonely and it was easier to worry about Dean when he could see his brother, rather than imagining him getting beat up in an alley for money they couldn’t afford to lose.

But his older brother wasn't even drunk. His nose was bleeding, and his left eye was swelling under a nasty black bruise. Dean scrambled against the door, locking it and drawing the curtains. Adam was up and at his side, checking the windows.

"What is it?" he asked, tense.

"I have no idea," Dean said "Where are the weapons?"

"Under the sink. What happened?"

"I was walking to the bar, something… some kind of creature came barreling past me. Shit just started vanishing."

"Vanishing? Adam asked, trying to recall what kind of monster could do that. The checklist was always in his head—and he ran through what wards he had put up in the time they had been in the room. He busied himself with double-checking the salt lines and the charms.

"I don't know Adam!" Dean looked crazed, he was tucking Ruby's knife into his jeans and loading bullets into the rock-salt shotgun. "I could barely see it, it was moving so fast. People, cars, a freaking fire hydrant—"

"Fire hydrant? What?"

But Dean was shushing him, waving his hand violently, and peering out of the crack between the curtains.

Silence.

In the distance, a dog barked and a car screeched into a turn. Suddenly light flooding in from one of the streetlamps disappeared.

The Winchester brothers stepped back, Dean's gun pointed to the door, Adam's to their single window. Adam’s hands were steady, his finger firmly on the trigger and he breathed evenly.  Again, silence. A moment of stillness, of hushed breathing. Nothing had been this intent on hunting them before, not crazed enough to attack in the open at the Winchester's base of operations. There was no time for research, no time for questions, or mistakes.

It came through the door. A shadow. The door was simply  _gone_ , as if it had never existed, the hinges still attached neatly to the doorframe, the curtains barely whispering. Dean got off the first shot, but it didn't even stop the creature. Its blue-black hide was unmarked, and the knotted hair dangling from its head was swung against its shoulders as it swept around the room. A bed vanished, then a lamp, the radiator. Adam shot at it, but couldn't be sure if it even touched the creature as it flew past him.

"Adam!" Dean cried, and Adam was swung by the shoulder into the tight bathroom. Dean shut the door, but both of them knew that couldn't really stop whatever it was. There were bangs and crashes coming from their room. It had barreled through their wards like nothing Adam had ever seen.

"What do we do?" he asked Dean, his hands shaking on the gun. It wouldn't work against whatever it was, and they had nothing else, nothing at all.

He barely had time to glance over at his brother's horrified face before the bathroom door disappeared and they were confronted by the creature. It lunged across the empty space to Adam, and he had time for one shot, which simply disappeared, before the creature was on him.

"Dean!" he screamed. A vacuum opened up squeezing him into an impossibly small shape. The world grew dark, lost color. He had a strange feeling of peace, engulfing his fear and desperation.

He heard Dean's agonized scream of "Adam! No!" before the world simply vanished into an instant of blackness.

###

**NINE YEARS AGO**

When Adam was eleven, he had Dean as an example and John as a role model. Sam was sixteen years old, and stayed in the corner with his books, trying not to think about the letter from Stanford in his backpack. If he was jumpier or more neurotic than usual, nobody commented on it.

Dean was playing a childish game of cards with John and Adam, though they had added stakes to the game and were now ribbing each other over the winnings. Sam stared at the textbook he didn't have to read until next week. He had told John that he had a test the next day, and that he needed to pass it if he wanted to graduate on time.

John didn't want Sam in school longer than necessary, though he agreed to let him get his high school diploma. It was a generous compromise, mostly negotiated by Dean’s gentle nudging.

But neither John nor Dean would never let Sam leave for Stanford. Did he want to leave though? With Adam so young, and Dean finally happy? He had to, if he didn’t want to see his brothers turn into John. He didn't want to watch them stubbornly ignore all the things they wanted and could never have.

If he left, would they finally think about those things? Sam didn't want to be a hunter, and he certainly didn't want to keep watching Adam getting torn to shreds by every black monster John could find in the phonebook, all on this pointless, endless quest to find the yellow-eyed demon.

He was trapped. Absolutely trapped by his family. Why had he even applied to colleges? Why had they taken in such a fucked up kid? It had to be a mistake, but it was theirs this time, and he had one pin-point of light in this darkness.

It should have felt like freedom, but Sam felt like he was suffocating. His fingers still burned from where he had opened the letter and read the impossible acceptance.

"Sometimes it's just impossible to read you," Dean said.

Sam looked up to find John unpacking the guns onto the table, and Adam putting the cards away. Dean had taken the opportunity to sit on the edge of the bed and take his shoes off. It was going to be a quiet night then. Sam snapped his book shut and stretched.

"What are you talking about?" he asked innocently, wrinkling his nose at the stench of Dean's unwashed socks.

"You've been staring at that book for the past hour, and nobody thinks that hard about," he craned his head to read the textbook's name, "American History."

Sam shrugged, "I guess I just zoned out."

Dean smirked knowingly. "Has our little Sammy found a girl?"

Sam rolled his eyes, "Shove off, Dean."

He got up, holding his hands out in surrender, "Whatever Sam, come on. Race you on a field strip."

The odds were against that. Sam was the fastest out of all of them, and the best shot. John did the research (though Sam had yet to make him see the powers of a laptop and a good spreadsheet), Dean got the info from the locals and could wrestle werewolves with ease, and Adam was turning out to be a damn master with a knife. The youngest Winchester was growing up just like Dean, all swagger and cocky smiles, needing nothing but his family and his gun. Oh if only the school system knew just how much Adam actually knew.

They huddled around the little table. Sam, when trying to go fast, could clean a gun in forty-seven seconds flat. But he was going slow today, taking his time to make sure it was all done perfectly because a clean gun is a safe gun. Dean and Dad started talking about the latest girl Dean was "dating," some redhead college girl who apparently had a thing for thongs, and then changed the subject to Adam and his studies, because they realized they probably shouldn't be talking about thongs and hot redheads around a kid Adam's age.

Nevermind that Adam was stripping a handgun alongside them.

Sam looked up, watching his family talk and enjoy their time while he stayed on the outskirts of the conversation, silent and barely there.

And he wondered.

What would happen if he just...

Shot himself in the head?

What would they do? Would they even do _anything_? They'd pick up and leave, find some other town, some other monster, because there were always monsters... always.

He looked at the gun in his hands, a powerful, sleek, mechanical thing.

He would do it.

He was going to do it.

Right now, he should just shoot himself and be done with hunting and killing and all the abnormal in his life. He wouldn't be a failure to his family anymore.

He would just be dead. Gone.

He was going to do it. He was going to pull the trigger and shoot himself in the head and be dead and gone. Dad and Dean and Adam would be free. It would all be so much better, so much easier for everyone. This was his escape, the way out, a big glowing exit sign that spelled out all the answers-

"I'm just going to the bathroom." He felt the words leave his mouth, but couldn't remember forming the thought. The Winchesters ignored him, Dean and Adam lost in a race to clean their favorite guns, John playing the referee.

In a dream-like state he was on his feet, the gun held loosely, balanced in his hand. The bathroom door opened and shut behind him, because he was on autopilot and it didn't quite feel real, that he was making these decisions. He locked the door, even though they _never_ locked the doors in the motel.

The motel bathroom was made of cold white tiles, a stained bathtub and a cracked toilet. The small toiletries littered the sink, and a few towels strung haphazardly on the rack because the maid hadn't come yet.

There was a roar of laughter from the table had had left, outside in that dirty motel room that joined the stream of motel rooms that had become his home. Never permanent. Always changing, always the same.

He lay down in the tub, rested his feet against the faucet and tipped his head back. He felt the cool metal of the gun dig into his chin.

His finger tightened on the trigger ever so slightly, and he took his last breath-

###

** NOW **

A thunderclap of sound, color, and movement shook the bathroom and the gun went off. But the angle was wrong now, his hand had moved at the last second and the bullet grazed his jawline and shattered the tiles behind his left ear.

He cried out, because  _damn_  that had hurt, and he struggled in the tub pathetically for a minute, trying to see what the hell was going on, but his hands kept slipping in the light spray of blood he had managed to draw from his own neck.

"What the hell?" someone asked.

Sam stared at the two strangers slack jawed because they didn't look like monsters. Hell, they looked as surprised as he was. They were standing in front of the bathroom counter, and Sam could tell at a glance they were hunters. They had the look— Practical, tactical clothing washed a hundred times too many, hard eyes, and calloused hands from shooting, digging, stabbing.

The youngest looked around his age, perhaps a little older, and the older one looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. For a moment Sam and the two men stared at each other, shock and fear competing in each of their faces.

There was a crash from the adjoining room where his family had heard the- whatever this was. John's voice rose high and reedy into a noise Sam hadn't thought his father could make: " _SAM!"_

The door shook on its hinges, shivering against its frame as it no doubt met with John's shoulder.

Sam had the gun turned on the two strangers in a split second. He had the advantage from this low angle. They couldn't reach for a weapon without him shooting first. The two were related, he could see that at once. Green eyes, the same shock of brown hair. They looked… familiar. In fact, he had the same eyes and hair. It couldn't be… John didn't have any family.

"Who are you?" Sam asked, his finger firm on the trigger, as if he were out on the hunt, not blitz attacked during his suicide attempt.

They were staring at him, mouths open comically, hands half raised at the muzzle of his gun. "Whoah kid, you're bleeding," the older one said, then he frowned and squinted at Sam's face.

"I noticed," Sam said evenly, not bothering to hold a hand to the wound on his jaw, though he could feel the blood slipping down his shirt front and collecting on his chest. "Dad?" Sam called out as his father hit the door again.

"Sam, What's going on?" John asked through the door, the doorknob shook as the older hunter tried the lock. "Sam, open the door!"

"Sam?" That was the younger stranger. He was  _crying_.

"Do I know you?" Sam asked, his eyes flickering between the two hunters no longer out of fear, but confusion. They hadn't moved for their weapons, but they didn't seem that afraid of his gun, when they  _really_ should be.

"This is a trick," the older one said, looking around the bathroom.

"Sam!" That was Adam, calling through the door, sounding frantic. The two strangers flinched, now looking towards the door.

"No. I remember this," the younger one said, "Dean, I  _remember_."

"It's not real," was the other's answer. "This… This is the angels. Or.." he trailed off, looking suddenly uncertain.

"There are no such things as angels," Sam said, keeping his voice steady, though it took some effort. "How do you know Dean?"

The older one opened his mouth, but his reply was cut off as the door caved under John's heel. Now there were six people in the bathroom, far too many for its size. John, Adam, and Dean had fanned out in the doorway and the newcomers were crowded by the mirror and sink, still looking more confused than afraid.

"Sam?" John asked, seeing the blood soaking into his shirt.

"I'm fine, sir," he reported. "Dean, do you know these people?"

"Never seen them before," Dean said, keeping his gun trained on the strangers.

"They know our names."

"Sam?" It was the younger one again, "Dean, it's Sam. It's him."

"What?" Dean asked, looking a little unbalanced.

"It's not!" The older one said firmly, looking away from Sam and focusing on John.

Sam opened his mouth, lowering the gun. It was… it couldn't be. How..?

"You have thirty seconds to tell me what you are and what you're doing here, or you're going to be buried on a  _very_ lonely stretch of highway," John said slowly.

Sam finally found his voice. He dropped the gun entirely, his hands shaking with adrenaline, his mind swirling with confusion. "Dad, It's… It's Adam. And Dean."

"What?" A few voices joined at once, mingling and echoing in the overcrowded bathroom.

But it was true. It was impossible  _not_  to see it now, like one of those optical illusions where there was a picture within a picture. He couldn't unsee it.

His brothers had grown up… well they had grown up like John, down to the haircut. And there were the scars on their hands, faded now and a few new ones crisscrossing their flesh, but the same ones that Sam had cleaned and stitched.

John hadn't lowered his weapon, but was eyeing them both suspiciously. It was Dean who brought out the silver knife and the holy water. The reflexes took over, this was a routine that every hunter knew. Everyone but Sam pulled up their sleeve and set about drawing blood to everyone's satisfaction.

Introductions over, they all holstered their guns, then stood awkwardly, looking at each other like two alien species meeting for the first time. Adam and Dean were peering cautiously around John's protective stance.

"Sam?" it was his Dean, "Sam, what are you doing in the tub?"

Sam looked at his gun, then lifted a hand two his chin where his skin was starting to feel like it was on fire.

"Those are powder burns," Adam observed officiously from next to John.

Their father was staring at Sam, or rather at the shattered tile behind Sam's head, the gun now sitting on his chest, and the blood slipping down his neck.

"Sa-" his voice hitched, he half-raised a trembling hand.

"It's not what it looks like," Sam said, picking up the gun, and struggling to his feet.

The blow came out of nowhere and he lost his precarious balance. Future-Adam had shoved him hard in the chest and disarmed him as easily as John or Dean could.

"Hey!" John's gun was instantly up, focused on Adam in warning, on the edge of aggression.

Adam held the gun out, gently placed it on the floor and kicked it towards his father. "I think we'd all be a little more comfortable if Sam didn't have the gun." he said slowly and evenly. He kept a hand on Sam's wrist, and as much as Sam didn’t want to be touched by the stranger, he didn’t want any sudden movements to tip the Mexican standoff into a bloodbath.

"Adam," Future-Dean warned his companion, "Adam let go. It's not real. This is a trick."

"Is that so?" John asked slowly, his gun steady.

 


	2. Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff. Things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have about 10 more chapters to post, but I'm editing as I go. Please leave me a sign of what you liked or didn't.

NINE YEARS AGO

Dean placed the gun on the table with a smirk. He may not have Sammy's speed, but damn, if his little brother didn't watch himself, Dean would beat him someday soon. Adam pouted as he slid the grip into place and checked the chamber.

He may have been eleven, but he was going to be a great hunter. Dean could see all the signs. He smiled proudly, but covered it with a smug smirk when his little brother looked up. He laughed at the narrowed eyes and childish grumpiness displayed on his Adam’s face. At first it seemed like his youngest brother was going to take offense, but he broke into a wide smile and laughed good naturedly alongside Dean.

It was a good day, a good night. They were a family and they might not have a perfect life, but Dean wouldn't want to be anywhere else. He shook his head and picked up his gun, looking to Sam's empty chair. In the intense race he hadn’t noticed his brother get up. When had he left the table?

Why had he taken—

The gunshot came mid-chuckle.

Dean sprang up, gun at the ready, shoving the clip into his handgun and looking towards the bathroom door where the noise had come from. John was faster, he was at the door in seconds.

"Sam!"

The door was locked. It rattled against the frame as John jerked on the doorknob. Why would Sam lock the door? "SAM!"

No answer. The door unhinged under their father's foot and he stepped into the bathroom, gun at the ready, scanning the room for whatever Sam had been shooting at—

White porcelain tub, white tiled floor, white, blank walls. White motel soap and white, clean towels hung on the rack.

Red. Sam.

Dean buckled first. His knees hit the ground solidly, but he didn't really feel it. Sam's head was turned to the side, blood trickling from his nose, and the corner of his mouth, his hair hanging over the right side of his face, his eyes half-closed.

"Sam?" That was Adam. He shouldn't see this. Dean needed to take him away, shield him like he had shielded Sam all those years ago from the flames and the terror, but he couldn't move.

"Sam!" Adam was screaming now, his mouth moving with one name repeated over and over again, and John was trying to move him, trying to get him out the door, but Dean couldn't budge. He was frozen, turned to stone, as fragile as ice.

"Samsamsamsamsamsamsam."

And John was gone, sweeping up Adam and dodging back through the door, closing it so his youngest wouldn't see. It was already too late for Dean. He crawled to Sam. His hands shook as he tried to slap some color into those pale cheeks, he had to avoid touching the blood, because… well because it was Sam, it was his precious baby brother. He couldn't be bleeding.

There was no pulse.

No heartbeat, no light push of air from Sam's lips.

Blood was sprayed against back wall, a red shadow.

Dean sat there for a long time, his thoughts frozen. His hands fluttered against Sam's white T-shirt, now soaked through with an arterial splatter. The sixteen-year old’s chest was bony, pale, unmarked.

"Sam?" he whispered. Maybe if he was quiet enough, if he didn't try to break this moment, Sam would open his eyes, maybe wink at Dean, and this would be some elaborate trick, or prank, or some monster's effect. It could still be fixed, it could still be… changed.

"Sam?" he tried again, because Sam hadn't moved, past a sluggish trickle of blood from his lips sliding down his chin and hairline. "Sam, don't—"

_Don't do this. Please don't be… don't. Please don't be dead. I can't. Don't._

John was back, at his side. "It's too late Dean, come on. We have to pack up the guns, we have to call the police. Dean, get up, Adam needs us."

"It's Sam. Dad, we have to…"

"There's nothing we can do, Dean. We have to take care of this."

###

Dean curled himself around Adam, who hadn't talked since the police had come and taken their statements. They had offered their condolences and the services of a local grief counselor, but John fielded their concern outside of their new motel room in a different motel across town.

The remaining Winchester brothers didn't wait for their father to come back from thanking the officers, but crawled into bed together. Dean held Adam, who cried fitfully, and lay rigidly, then cried again, in an endless cycle of misery.

John came back, packed everything, got his children into the Impala, and they drove aimlessly around the tiny town. Dean sat in the back seat with Adam's head on his lap, and nobody talked. The night was cold, and a light pattering of rain filled the car with a melancholy percussion.

Dean cried silently, the way he had taught himself.

###

The funeral was a dull affair, held back a few days by the police inquiry and a visit from the local social services. One look at the broken family told her Sam hadn't… done what he had done, because of his family.

Dean wasn't so sure, but who was he to argue with the stern looking woman.

They dug him up at midnight while the soil was still fresh, and they salted and burned his ashes in the middle of the woods, their grief protected from view.

And then they could finally leave this little godforsaken town.

###

"Why do you think he did it?" Adam asked a full year later.

Dean thought about feigning ignorance about what his little brother was asking about, but his throat had closed. He just shook his head.

Adam never asked again.

###

A year later, they came back to the motel of the week and John was waiting, drunk. Sam's duffel had been lying in the back of the Impala, untouched. They didn't have many possessions on the road, and not much room in the Impala for unneeded objects, but no one touched the faded black bag, and after a while Dean's eyes would just slip over the familiar lumpy shape.

So he was almost shocked by the appearance of it on the neatly made motel bedspread. It had been opened and objects spilled from it as if it had been disemboweled. Dean felt his throat close again. Those were Sam's clothes, his books, and the knife Dean had gotten him for that last Christmas.

Their father slumped on the floor, his back against the mattress. There was a piece of paper clutched in a shaking hand, and a bottle of expensive whiskey cradled against his stomach.

"Dad?" Dean asked cautiously.

John looked up, and the stoic, stone-faced man was crumpled in defeat and misery.

"What's wrong?" Adam whispered, looking towards the messy arrangement of Sam's clothes and treasures.

John just shook his head. "I'll sleep in the Impala tonight, boys. We're moving on tomorrow, so get your school things ready."

And then he was getting to his feet, and the sheet of paper was slipped onto the cabinet as he stumbled out into the parking lot.

Adam looked up at Dean, who shrugged helplessly. Why John would want to sleep in the Impala when they had paid the motel up for the next week was a mystery to them both.

Thinking that the letter could only mean bad news, Dean glanced at it and froze on the name.

_Dear Sam,_

_I take great pleasure in offering you admission to Stanford University…_

And there was a decal on the top of the letter, an impressive red seal. The realization hit Dean in the stomach. Sam. Sam had a future. Sam had wanted… had wanted to leave. Could have left.

"Dean?" Adam asked, he was pouring over the contents of Sam's life with a curiously blank expression, "What does it say?"

Dean cleared his throat, and shoved the paper into the pocket of his jacket. "Nothing," he told Adam, "It's just… You don't want to know."

Adam shrugged, and Dean began to worry. The youngest Winchester had lost so much in the past few years. He was almost unrecognizable from the care-free young daredevil Dean had raised.

"Do you remember Sam?" he asked.

An angry spark lit the youngster's face. "Yeah, Dean, It's only been two years. You and Dad are the ones who won't talk about him. You're the ones who pretend he never existed."

"No," Dean swallowed uneasily. The silence had been more complicated than that, but he plowed on, "I mean, can you remember if he was ever happy? With us?"

They both stared down at the faded jeans and windbreaker, Dean could almost smell the dusty peppermint that was all Sam and a little bit of the mother he could sometimes remember.

"I used to think so," Adam said quietly, "but now when I think of those times, I just… I have to wonder if he was just pretending."

"He loved you," Dean told him, feeling the letter burn in his pocket. Sam had wanted to leave. Sam had been desperate to leave, but Dean knew that Sam loved Adam.

"I know," Adam picked up a T-shirt and smoothed it out against his legs.

###

Adam turned sixteen with a subdued fanfare. He blew the candles out on the cake Dean had bought half-price from the grocery store a few blocks from the motel.  _Sam's age_. None of them voiced the words, but it was all any of them could think.

John smiled tightly when he handed his youngest son a new set of clothes, and a serviceable knife. "We'll have to teach you how to drive soon."

Nodding, Adam smiled up at Dean, a smile that was all Sammy and a little bit Mary. He was a cute kid.

Dean got drunk and spent the night huddled over a toilet. Adam brought him towels and spent most of the time in the corner of the bathroom asking anxiously if Dean was alright.

###

Adam's seventeenth birthday was even worse.

###

Sam faded a little into memory, but there was always that empty spot in the car where Dean would sometimes turn and remember the features on the edge of becoming handsome, the toothy smile and eager eyes, the caring soulful puppy-dog look. Every year on the same day, Dean would get drunk and try not to remember kneeling on the cold hard tiles, trying to bring his brother back.

Life carried on and they hunted, learned how to kill in ever more creative ways. Adam turned into an efficient hunter, and little family was making quite the legend in all the wrong kinds of circles. Dean slept with a lot of women, Adam tried a few relationships with classmates and friends, but nothing ever stuck long enough to be called love. John just kept on hunting the yellow eyed demon with the same, single-minded vengeance that

Their father died in the hospital, saving Dean.

And then there were two.

They killed the yellow-eyed demon.

Adam died in his arms.

Stabbed in the back during a routine hunt, Adam crumpled to the ground and Dean howled. This was his fault. He had to have his brother's back. He couldn't outlive Sam and Adam, it just wasn't  _fair_. He was just a kid, and Dean felt himself fall apart. He frayed on the edges and reality seemed to drop away from his feet. The world opened up and swallowed him whole.

He was alone. Completely without the one thing that made him somebody, the one defining object of his life. Dean for a brief moment that lasted an eternity was without family.

He sold his soul, and the next year he broke the first seal on the apocalypse.

Adam was strong when he came back from the forty years of hell. His little brother was hunting like a machine. (Castiel said it was because he was a chosen warrior, all the Winchesters were.)

The last seal broke with Adam killing Lilith, and then the revelation that Lucifer was wearing his second-best meat-suit to the prom if Adam said yes.

And then that day came around, the day Dean had eight times. Except this time, something attacked.

###

NOW (Dean)

This wasn't Sam. This was a monster, a  _thing_  trying to trick him. A djinn maybe? Something had to be creating this world for him. The details were wrong, His father looked too young, and Sam looked too old. The blood wasn't right, and Sam was  _alive_.

He was going to rip whatever had done this to shreds. He was going to wrench it apart with his bare hands and eat the remains. Blind anger took a hold of him, but he didn't know what to attack, what to trust.

Adam was crying, was reaching out to his dead brother with such hope. A growl started to grow deep in Dean's chest. "Adam," he warned, "Adam let go. It's not real. This is a trick."

"Is that so?" fake John asked, holding up his gun.

And there, under his raised arm, peered a young Dean, his gun holstered, but still wary.

In an instant Dean saw himself clearly, the innocence, the unbroken faith, the absolute trust. This Dean still had his family, had not seen all the horrors life had to offer. This Dean hadn't been flayed apart in hell, hadn't lost both brothers, or watched the world fall apart in a bloody, messy battle that revealed all the intricate tortures war had in store for him.

He swallowed, not quite able to breathe. It couldn't be real, could it?

"Dean," Adam said quietly, "We'll figure this out. Let's just… sit down. We've all proved we're human now. We can go sit down somewhere and figure this all out."

 


	3. What the Future Holds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winchester boys get down to the business of talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Review or so god help me, I will ground you for a month!

###

THEN

The Impala was the only home the boys ever knew. The seats were molded around them, every inch of it was worked into their memory, as familiar as each other, and far more comforting. The Impala was home, warm in the winter and cold in the summer. The Impala taught them about engines, about how to keep going even when the world was falling apart.

There was something special about that car.

John always drove, unless he was teaching the boys how to handle her. Dean sat in the front unless Sam was navigating, and Adam, well Adam sat in the back, keeping their spirits up, reminding them why they were fighting.

Sam taught him how to read in the back of that car, and Adam was soon devouring books. He'd read out loud sometimes, and there would be comfortable, companionable quiet as they took in his words. Adam's memories of Sam would always be of his brother's face turned to the window, a pensive stare into the darkness all around them, and a haunted, shadowy look that he couldn't identify until it was far, far too late.

He was too young, when it happened, to understand what was going on. He was angry at Sam for leaving at first. He was hurt, and confused. Dean just didn't talk to him, and John wouldn't explain exactly what Adam had caught a glimpse of in that motel.

His imagination would make up the rest, until he realized, kind of out of the blue what had happened, what nobody was saying.

Sam had shot  _himself_.

The images that came with that were garbled and confused. Adam had an impression of blood, and white, gleaming floors. He knew he had seen… whatever it was, but every time he tried to remember the details, it all kind of blurred together and his mind glossed over it like he was trying to force two magnets to touch.

It was in Literature, while they were watching "Watership Down," that the pieces clicked together. The family tragedy finally revealed. Like the rabbits, home had been lost in a tide of blood with the stench of death. He could barely face Dean when he came to pick him up after school.

The door creaked, a familiar, comforting complaint, and he closed it firmly, settling his backpack by his feet.

"How was your day?" Dean asked.

"Fine." Adam said.

###

NOW

His Dean was the first to move. He shoved past John, ignoring his father's warning, and pulled Sam out of the tub, away from old Adam and old Dean. "What is this?" he asked, feeling up the side of Sam's neck, searching for the source of all the blood. His anger, his fear was palpable.

"It was just an—an accident Dean. I didn't—"

_I didn't mean to slip. I should be gone. I fucked it up again. Put everyone in danger. Again._

"Slipped into the tub, and blew your brains out, huh Sammy?" Dean future asked, his voice hoarse. "Well that's comforting."

"Sam?" It was John, his face was pale. He looked so much older already, as if he too was from this impossible future. "Sam, were you…?"

Sam tried to fumble out a lie, but the words got stuck. His mind was blank. It had seemed so simple when he had left the room, like a math equation. He would die, and then it would all just… stop. He wouldn't have to lie any more. The relief had been physical, a lifting of weight, but it was all crashing down around his ears.

_I should be dead. Why? Why am I not dead?_

The answer was standing a few feet away in the form of two much older brothers. They had hunched together, observing the scene cautiously. Young Dean shook his head "What—" he started, but stopped abruptly as Sam made eye contact with him.

"Sam?" he asked urgently.

_What?_ Sam wanted to ask,  _What is it? What do you want? Was this not enough?_  But the words weren't coming. He couldn't really breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, his ribs crushing against his hammering heart. _Please,_  he prayed,  _let this be a dream. I can't… I can't. I can't. I can't. I just can't do it anymore._

Darkness rushed against him like a wave against the shore.

###

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Sam was thirteen. Death was so much a part of this life, that thinking about it constantly seemed almost normal. But it wasn't. Everyone knew that.

He instinctively hid his obsession, as it was growing to be, a little ashamed about his mind going to such dark places in the moments between hunts and school and family. It was hard not to feel guilty when he was curled up next to Adam, thinking about leaving him.

It would have been so easy. They had almost every method within arm's reach.  _Let me count the ways…_ The major pain drugs that had numbed Sam when Dean had stitched him up after his first clawing. They could rock him to sleep under some nearby bridge. The knives that could slice and dice anything, they could open up the veins in his arms, or in his neck. Poison. There were dozens in the back of the Impala, ranging from slow and painful to quick and painless.

Of course there was always the guns, a sudden, violent exit, gone in a flash.

Temple? Chin? Heart? Swallow the barrel?

Rope? You could never have enough rope when you were a hunter. A noose around the neck? He could hang himself from a tree, none of the fixtures in the motel could be trusted to hold, and the ceiling was too low anyway.

He could jump from a roof, as long as they weren't in the extreme southern states where the buildings were too low and the land too flat.

Adam breathed against his back, his baby breaths deep and fast, on the edge of a snore. Sam let the thoughts ebb away in the wash of that noise. He wasn't serious about it. It was just a fantasy, just something to pass the time.

But that ticklish feeling, that pleasurable thrill of freedom stayed in his chest. Death was freedom, and it was just close enough to touch.

###

NOW

"Sam killed himself?" Dean asked shakily.

"In that bathroom, with that gun, half an hour ago," his future told him grimly.

John had pulled Sam out of the bathroom and settled him on the bed. He held a gun in each hand. His own, safety on but still at the ready, and Sam’s on his other knee, absorbing his silent attention. None of the Winchester boys had seen their father look so lost.

They grouped around the bed, and were looking at the unconscious Sam, as though at any moment he might wake up and explain what was going on.

"We'll take care of it," John said, sitting next to Sam and feeling his forehead. "We'll get him help. We can… I can fix this."

"But why don't we remember this? I still remember…" Adam swallowed and looked at himself, all eleven years old. "I remember him being gone."

"Okay," Dean sat down on the bed, "Okay. We just need to think."

Young Dean gathered Adam into his arms, and kept one eye on Sam, the other on their strange visitors. Adam had turned out alright, handsome, cool, confident, and almost serene. But that Dean looked haggard, he looked old and worn out, like Dad did when Dean knew to stay away.

He wasn't sure he would like to know what his future held.


	4. Reasoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Summaries are for Cliffnotes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review! I would really appreciate it.

NOW

Sam woke up immediately, a familiar disappointment. He kept his breathing normal, sensing a nearby presence. The skin over his collarbone and neck burned, someone had cleaned his injuries. There was no sound around him, but the mattress was dipping underneath his hips. Had to be John by the weight.

"He's awake," Adam reported from nearby.

Sam winced involuntarily. Trust Adam to call his bluff. He reluctantly opened his eyes, and was greeted by his father's shadowed face. He looked angry, was he going to shout?

"Hey Sam," John said gruffly.

At least he wasn't shouting, but this was confrontation, and Sam didn't have an argument for this. He had failed, and now he looked pathetic, a failure.

"Where are the other Adam and Dean?" he asked, turning away to wipe the forming tears out of his eyes.

Behind him he heard John sigh, "Making calls."

"Don't try to pretend," that was Dean. That was more like the Winchester growl, the violent edge behind the words. Sam sent him a glare and was surprised to see Dean with an arm around Adam, the two of them slouched against the backboard of the second bed. Adam looked confused, Dean angry.

"What?" he asked, peeling off the ruined white shirt and reaching for another in his bag. His raw skin pinched against the fabric, a punishment. This wasn't a big deal. He hadn't managed to do it after all. Just another failure in a long line of failures.

As he pulled the cotton over his shoulders, something brushed against him. The motel door opened, the cotton cleared Sam's eyes and like a vanishing act, Dean was no longer huddled next to Adam. The door slammed shut behind him, throwing a gust of cool air into the room.

"Dean?" Adam asked, looking out of place all alone on the crisply made bed.

"It's okay, buddy," John reassured him, "Why don't you go after him? Me and Sam are just gonna be in here talking."

"I want to go with Adam," Sam said impulsively.

"Sam," John said warningly, but Adam had him beat.

"I'll bring you back something," and the eleven year old was running out the door, no doubt glad to be away from the tension. Or away from Sam. He tried to bite back the thought, but it rang so true in his head.

The door opened and closed again, marking Adam's exit.

Now it was just him and John. Sam tried to make an escape to the bathroom, cutting a wide berth around his father, but the eldest Winchester shook his head, "Come on Sam."

He made a show of sitting on the bed, and nodded to the other one. "We need to talk."

Sam backed away, shaking his head in opposition, "It's fine Dad. It was just an accident. It was just…"

"I know what it was, Sam," John said, cutting through the jumbled thoughts racing through Sam's head. Why couldn't he  _think_? There was a way out of this, there was always a way out—

"Where's my gun?" The guns were gone, all the guns. The knives, and the packages of herbs, and wooden bowls. Were they going to leave him? They were. Even Sam's duffel had been emptied of weapons, he hadn't noticed when he was pulling out the new shirt, but now he could see the bulges where they should have stretched against the canvas.

"You won't need your gun," John said. He was still sitting on the bed, his hand clasped between his knees.

Sam suddenly wanted to hit the man. He wanted to cause him pain. Sam had been trying to fix it, was so close to fixing it, and now they were just going to leave him? Fear writhed in his chest, squeezing precious room in his ribcage from his heart and lungs. What were they going to do? Lock him a room with soft walls?

"Dad," he began shakily, "Dad, I didn't mean it."

John shook his head. "That Adam and Dean are from a future where you succeeded. I know you meant what you were doing. You used a gun, you were in the tub, and you pulled the trigger— Christ," Sam jumped a little as his father swiped a hand over his face, "Sam, you nearly…"

He choked up, and Sam was grateful because every word was shaking his foundations. His lips are trembling and he was  _seconds_  from breaking, shattering into a thousand places. He wanted to scream, howl, fight and fight until he shredded himself out of his body.

But he was frozen, and when John looked at him again it was an imploring, pleading look that Sam had no idea how to respond to. His father is a commander. Even when he is in the room, he isn't really  _there._

"Sam, talk to me. Tell me what's going on. Is it a girl? Or School? Or is it… is it us?"

And that's when Sam bolts.

###

THREE YEARS AGO

Adam gets his diploma, and Dean half wishes he would get out of the life. He wished his little brother could just leave. He's smart enough, capable of anything put in front of him, but there's that Winchester stubbornness. Dean sometimes wants to ask him whether he still remembers Sam, how intelligent and driven he was.

Because now it scares him. He is terrified of how similar his brothers are.

"You good?" he asks Adam when the skinny boy only orders a cup of coffee. They've spent twelve hours in the car. They've got lead on yellow-eyes. A  _good_ lead, and that's too precious to waste. Both are still fired up from John's death, and Dean can't measure how relieved he is that Adam wasn't there to see it. He had been finishing his senior year in Orlando, waiting for their call.

Adam blinks sleepily at him. "Hmm?" he asks.

"We've still got a long way to go, you sure you don't want some pancakes?"

He nods. "I'll eat when we get there."

Dean calls the waitress over. She's in her forties with dyed blonde hair and a sallow face. She smiles at them with big, unfortunate teeth. "Something else caught your eye?" she asks with practiced enthusiasm.

"Can I get a side of blueberry pancakes?" he asks.

"Sure thing," and she's gone.

Adam glares at him. "I'm not hungry Dean." he says.

Dean shrugs. They're both tired, and had more than enough of each other, cramped in the Impala, breathing each other's air. This is the cue for a fight, but he feels too tired, too worried, to win this one.

Adam opens his mouth, about to argue, but when Dean doesn't meet his eyes, he deflates. "Fine."

That wasn't Sammy. Dean's chest opens a little. Sam would have pushed and tested, until they both snapped. They would have had an argument, and he would have stormed out rather than admit defeat.

Then they both would have said too much, and they'd feel guilty, but no longer angry. And they'd know exactly how the other was feeling when they got into the Impala and set out again. The air would thin a little, and they'd apologize in a thousand tiny ways with Adam rolling his eyes in the backseat ' _you guys are such girls.'_

At least, that was Sammy six years ago.

But Adam was as closed off. And Dean was still tired. He shouldn't be making this comparison. Adam wasn't Sammy, and Dean had to be grateful.

###

NOW

Adam watched Dean cautiously. They had gotten an old number from John, and Dean was frustrated. Sam would be awake by now, and Adam wanted to go to him. It had been a shock to realize just how much he remembered his older brother. Wiry, lean, long limbed. Tired. It was all the same, true to the memory that he thought should be distorted by time and pain.

He twisted his fingers, feeling the knuckles crack under the stress. His younger self was a stranger now. There were a thousand warnings and reassurances he felt like he owed the little Winchester, but he had held back in the motel room.

Maybe this time, he would have a chance at making everything right. With Sam here maybe Dean wouldn't make the Deal, maybe John wouldn't die or go missing with three sons too look after. He was thrown out of his thoughts by Dean snapping the phone shut.

"Bobby's looking through the books," Dean told him curtly, throwing the phone to Adam to take back to John.

"What about Ellen? She might know something."

"I'm not calling Ellen."

He began to walk back to the motel room, apparently already done with this conversation.

"Why not? We should pool resources." Adam followed his brother, already clicking his way through John's contacts, trying to find Ellen's name. He is so absorbed in the search, he nearly walks into Dean's back.

"Ellen's dead," Dean said with a finality that scares Adam. "Ellen, Jo, Ash. They're all dead."

"Not now," Adam scoffs. "Maybe this is a second chance, we can warn them. Hell, we can stop the apocalypse! We saved Sam, who knows what else we can change!"

"We're here because of a monster, Adam. We'll kill it and everything will go back to the way it was. That's how it works. If any of this is real, any of it at all, we'd be changed. We'd remember it  _differently_."

Adam took a step back and held his hands out, trying to calm his brother a little. It doesn't work.

"We didn't save Sam. We can't save Sam, because that's just how the world works," Dean continues, cocking his head to the side, like he's facing down a threat, "All we have is each other, and the apocalypse is still happening  _somewhere_. Anything we see or do here will change  _nothing_."

"You can't really believe that."

"Angels are dicks, and there are more demons than people. If we have learned anything, it's that believing in anything will get you killed. What I  _know_  is that there is no magical fix for the Winchesters."

"You don't know that, Dean," Adam whispered, and this time he's the one to move forward until he's in Dean's space and his brother had to lean away. "You can just stand out here and be angry at everyone else for not giving you a break. But that is our  _family_  in there. Sam is in there and he needs our help, Dad too. I know you're angry at Sam, and you're hurting, even if you won't admit it. You think you don't care? Fuck you. You don't just  _decide_  to stop caring. So you just sulk out here for a while, I'm going to go find my brothers and tell them it's going to be okay. Hell, I'll go give John a hug because he's my father, and I miss him. And then I am going to call Ellen, and ask her to help us. You can come find me when you've decided that the world is worth saving again."

He walked past Dean. He didn't want to hear anything his brother had to say, not at that moment. Dean was his brother, the only person that Adam would trust with his life, even his soul. That didn't mean he was right.

They were both tired, and confused, but that didn't mean they had to give up before they even tried.

###

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Sam stared at himself in the mirror. The hunt had been bad, his side is all cut to hell, and if he were a normal kid, he'd be getting stitches at a hospital. Dad had brought the thing home, had thought he'd killed the whole nest, but of course there was just one survivor, all fired up for revenge.

Dean had gotten it worse. He was getting stitched up on the motel bed, but Sam had to shower, get everything out of the cuts before John could take a look at them. He lingered at the mirror, watching the watery blood stream down his skin in rivers, connecting with droplets of water collected on his skin from his shower.

It became thinner and gathered speed. It tickled as it ran down his thighs, slipped over his calves and gathered around his feet, a pale, pink water. The torn skin was almost fascinating, all the jagged edges and diagonal lines.

Violent. Uneven. Uncalculated. Sam hated that.

He had an English Test tomorrow. The pain would be a distraction. He'd spend the whole day paranoid that blood would be leaking through his shirt. That would be his two worlds colliding. School and the hunting, his family tangled. Maybe he could bind it up with cling-film. It would take longer to heal, but nobody would find out. Things could stay separate.

A knock on the door startled him. "You done?" It was Adam. He hadn't been hit, but John was going to show him how to stitch up a wound, and Sam had helpfully provided some practical practice.

Sam was useful in that way at least.

 


	5. Different

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

"What is it?" Adam asked. His childish face was lit up with awe. Probably just at the fact that whatever-it-was was new, not a hand-me-down or bought in the clearance section of the drug store.

"Looks expensive," Dean observed, and there was an odd tone to his voice. He sounded distant.

"I saved up," Sam said defensively, hunching one shoulder.

He had missed every lunch of the school year to save up, and it hadn't been the most expensive in the little store at the mall. It was perfect for Adam. Smooth, Jet black, just heavy enough to be manageable. "The tip will wear down by the way you hold your hand. Like a knife. It'll be yours. No one else will have a pen like it.”

He was so intent on the words Adam wrote in childish, blocky letters, he flinched when his brother flung himself at him for a hug. "I love it," Adam said, "Thank you so much. I'm never going to lose it, I promise."

The Winchesters have so few possessions, and they are so territorial, he never does loose it. He keeps it in his jacket at all times, and when he studies his Latin or translates a spell, it reminds him of Sam. It's one of the only things he owns not given out of necessity. It doesn't protect him, but it has purpose, use and intention. It has nothing to do with hunting.

Dean looked at Sam over Adam's head. There was a funny little smile on his face. It wasn't not forced, but Sam doesn't think he's happy.

"You did good Sam," he said.

None of them tell John about the pen, and he never notices. For some reason it's a secret, a binding moment between the three of them. Dean thinks it stupid, (or.. weird, he will amend). It's just a pen. Just a fancy pen.

###

NOW

Sam was shaking. It was cold outside, so cold that he might just freeze to death and save himself the trouble. Dean and Adam, from a future he had left. They looked… well hunters never really looked healthy. The fast food, odd hours, and bone-deep grief left most of them looking like pale, unshaven zombies.

But they were alive. That was enough in this cruel little world.

He was crouched under a small, wooden bridge, part of a local bicycle track. Sometimes a bike would race over his head and the whole foundation would groan and shake in protest. If he had any will to live left he would be moving, trying to get some warmth into his muscles, but what was the point? If he was cold or hot, he was still  _here._

Without him, they would live. They'd stay together, stay strong. Adam and Dean against all the monsters and shadows. Sam hunched further into himself. He should find another way…

He was too tired. Getting up was too much effort. His father, John,  _sir_  wouldn't have to feel pity for him, wouldn't have to wonder why his son was a failure.

_"Is it us?"_

"No, dad," Sam whispered to his knees, "It's me."

Because he wasn't a hunter. He wasn't good enough to care for Adam. He couldn't protect Dean, or be John's perfect soldier. He was just a rodeo clown for the monsters, a distraction until Dean or their dad could pump them full of lead, or silver, or salt. Even then he failed. He wasn't fast enough to get out of the way, and then of course it would go for Dean ( _Blood on dusty floorboards, a high pitched sound ringing endlessly in his ears. Sam! Sam! Get up! We need to get him to the hospital! Shit. It's bad.)_

He couldn't do a single thing right.

NOW

"You let him go?" Dean asks incredulously. "What did he say?"

Adam is at his side, hanging back a little. The eleven year old is confused. He knows something bad is happening. Something is wrong with Sam, and something about the gun and their older selves is not right. His thoughts are scattered, he doesn't want to think about what is wrong because his mind is just… it's got Sam's voice and it's telling him  _"You don't wanna know_."

Their dad is gathering his keys and his coat. "I didn't let him go, he just ran."

"How? What the hell happened?"

"I don't know, Dean!" John is upset, angry. Frustrated, and he knows Dean is right. By the time he had tripped over Sam's discarded duffel and made his way around the bed, opened the door and stumbled out onto the concrete pathway of the motel, Sam was gone. The kid was fast, he had to be in this life. John himself had trained him how to lose a pursuer. "He's got a hell of a head start. Adam, you stay here. Dean, come with me. He's on foot, in the woods. We'll need you to track him. Adam, when… the… other two come back, you tell them we need help."

"With what?" Twenty-year-old Adam appeared in the doorway, looking around the small room, "Where's Sam?"

"Gone," Dean supplied angrily, "he took off."

Years of training took hold in one absolute instant. "Where?" Adam asked, "Which way did he go?"

"The tree line. It's the only way he could have disappeared so fast," John said. He was still unsure about this… boy. But Sam was out there, in danger. A thousand nightmares haunted the earth, but he'd never imagined he'd be this terrified or angry. He'd been forced to raise Sam like a hunter, to make the hard choices. He would kill for his son, and he would die for him.

And someday he might have to kill him. But that wasn't today. Today wasn't the day he was going to say goodbye. The older Adam was gone already and the younger one was looking scared.

"Where's Sam, dad? What's going on?

NOW

The concrete pathway was well kept. In warmer weather it would probably be frequented by pet owners and families looking for a little outdoor release. Adam followed the winding walkway, searching the ground for any sign of Sam. He would have to cross the path at some point to get any deeper into the woods.

"Sam!" he called out, "It's Adam! I just want to talk to you!"

But when had that ever worked to lure anyone out of hiding?

These woods were huge. What were the chance they could find Sam before he… Adam swallowed, unwilling to finish that thought. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Sam yet, to ask him how he could help. He had read everything he could get his hands on about depression, about the signs, motives, and how the friends and family were supposed to ( _should have_ ) helped.

But they were hunters. Everyone was depressed. Most of the people they knew were suicidal and the job kept them sane, kept them moving. Bobby sometimes would look at Adam and Dean, and you didn't have to be a psychic to read the accusation there.  _You're the only thing keeping me here, boys._

Adam had gotten really good at helping people. Hunters. Victims. Civilians. That's why he could hunt so well. He was saving people, good people that deserved life and happiness. Sam deserved that.

Adam couldn't be too late this time. He wouldn't be able to live through it again. He'd bury himself alive and scream at the darkness until his throat collapsed. The thought, the overwhelming dread of finding Sam covered in blood, Sam pale and lifeless, with milky eyes and frozen flesh stopped him in his tracks. He swallowed frantically, trying to banish the fear.

Throat, wrists, head, slashed, bashed, cracked, ripped, sliced, broken. Still.

Forever. Again.

A groan tore out of his throat and he rubbed at his eyes frantically. His vision blurred then crystallized. Ahead of him, the footpath became a small bridge over a small, silent creek that dipped like a miniature, green canyon. The soil was like clay and the stones were worn by nature's patient elements.

He walked to the bride and leaned on the railing, squinting into the forest. Where would Sam go? Maybe it was better not knowing. Of course it wasn't. Adam still didn't have a goodbye. Dean would still be a wreck. And this time they'd be expected to shoulder the pain again, silently, the Winchester way.

Adam lowered his forehead onto his arms, his breath turning to smoke in the air. Why? Why had the creature taken them back here? Maybe it  _was_  some cruel trick, fate's way of telling them that Sam was never meant to make it to his next birthday. When had a monster ever given them anything? It was madness to think this could ever have changed anything.

Dean was right. Everyone here was dead already. Adam had been fooling himself.

He'd just wanted this one thing, so badly. One break. One chance to get it done over again, right this time.

Mechanically he stepped back onto the concrete path of the other side, and wedged his feet into the pliant ground, looking for clues around the stream that might tell him if Sam had come this way. He couldn't give up yet.

"Sam?"

It was his brother, huddled under the foundations, his head between his knees. He was shivering, his hands curled into claws on each side of his head. The fear and relief flooded him in shivering waved. His breath dragged in, ragged.

"Hey Sam," Adam said softly, backing away a little before ducking under the bridge to join him.

"I'm right here, Sam."

He couldn't touch his brother, he couldn't be sure how the boy would take the contact. Instead he sat just inches away, his whole body tense with the  _need_  to make sure Sam was alright. He sat there, looking out at the creek bed, unsure of how to proceed.

Dean would be trying to get Sam to look at him, close to hitting Sam if he resisted. John would be far away, trying to coax him from under the bridge like it was some milestone in their relationship. Adam twisted his fingers together, feeling sick.

What would Sam do? Sam would… well, he'd just fix it. Sam could do anything.

"I really missed you," he said at last, and he hated the way his voice cracked. He had no experience of dealing with teenagers. Being one himself was awkward enough without having to evaluate the experience.

"Dean missed you too, but he never really says it." Shit. He was rambling, but now he couldn't stop. All those empty motel rooms he monologued to, they were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to actually talking to Sam. "We still move around a lot, hunting mostly. Dean keeps saying that we'll go to the Grand Canyon, but we just—it's hard to make the time."

Sam said nothing, but his hands had relaxed a little. Adam still couldn't see his face, but it was a relief just to see that his words were being heard. "Dean drinks a lot these days. He doesn't sleep much, and he's stopped chasing girls, but if he hadn't changed I think I might be more worried. Bobby says he needs a break, but you try telling that to Dean. He tells you to shut up, and then he just… he shuts down."

A few ragged breaths warned Adam before his brother raised his head. Sam hadn't been crying, as Adam had feared, but his face was pale, a tinge of blue around his lips. Adam removed his coat in slow, deliberate movements, then swung it around Sam's shoulders. The teenager made no move to accept the warmth, but let the thick fabric hang over his shoulders.

"Why did you come back? You can't make me better," he rasped.

"Something brought us back here. Some kind of creature. We didn't even think this was an option, or we would have… Hell, if we knew half of what we know now, Dean probably would have sold his soul to get you back years ago."

Sam kept staring straight ahead and the empty stare was starting to worry Adam. This whole thing was fucked up, their family, this life. He didn't want to have to watch his brother die, not when he could see it happening in slow motion. How had they all been so blind. "We would have brought you back," he said again, softly now.

"Why don't you ever let me choose?" The question was unexpected and razor edged.

Adam swallowed, feeling his gut lurch. "I don't—Sam, I didn't… We let you go, but don't think that what you… did was a choice. You didn't even say goodbye, didn't ask us for help. We would have—"

Sam looked at him at last, and there was some fire at last. "You can't help me. There's nothing you can do," he said, "Nothing will be different."


	6. Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to Bobby, and Adam finds Sam.

NINE YEARS AGO

Bobby opens his door to John Winchester and two of his boys. He assumes Sam is gathering his supplies from his car. The family looks like hell, and it's not the first time Bobby wishes the boys could stay with him, go to school, maybe get a hold of their own lives. If Karen could see him now, looking after three boys and a grown man…

"John," he nods at the eldest Winchester as his boys duck through the doorway without ceremony.

Dean doesn't look at him, but herd Adam into the house. The boys are unusually silent, and Bobby suddenly senses that something is very wrong. John stays on the steps. He looks like he's in pain. Bobby can hear the Impala cooling in the yard, but there's no crunch of footsteps telling him Sam's on his way, or shuffle of weaponry as the boy collects his things.

The silence is all he needs. He knows.

"How?" he asks, as the world plummets away from his feet, "What did it?"

Bobby's not big on revenge, he knows when a battle is over. That's how he's survived this long anyway. You don't go on missions that end up killing more than what's already dead. But he needs to know, needs something to hate right then.

"Sam's dead," John says, like it still needs explaining. Bobby just waits. He knows grief. He's seen enough of it now to know that offering a hand to John would end with a fistfight. John looks drained. He's swaying on his feet, and he must have driven for the past two days.

"Come inside," Bobby says.

But John stays by the door.

"He shot himself."

The night grew louder around them, or maybe it was just all the blood rushing through Bobby's head. He stares as the man in front of him keeps talking.

"We were right there. He just went past us, like he was coming back. I didn't see him take the gun, I swear Bobby. I swear to god, I didn't know. He didn't tell me… He didn't say anything."

Robert Singer looks out into the darkness. "Where is he?" he asks.

"I salted and burned him. After… after the funeral."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Bobby. I couldn't. The boys were—I don't think Adam understands, but Dean... Dean saw him. I had to drag him outta there. Christ, I didn't know what to do. I don't know what to say to them."

“Does Jim know?”

Because Pastor Jim is more a father than John ever was, but when he had talked about keeping a hold of them, letting them go to school and find their own way, John never brought them by longer than a weekend again. Bobby knew better than to try and take the boys, but he could make sure there was a place they were all safe, where the family wasn’t threatened.

John shakes his head and Bobby’s heart tightened. Jim didn’t know. There’s enough raw fear in John’s eyes that Bobby understands everything. Guilt was keeping his feet on the doorstep. If Bobby tells him to leave and never come back, John would. He’d never darken his door again, and likely die in a last suicidal rush at yellow-eyes.

            John Winchester just didn’t want to hear an ‘I told-you-so’ from Jim Murphy. He didn’t want to think about what could have been if he’s trusted Jim. If he’d trusted Sam.

“I’ll call him in the morning,” Bobby says gruffly. "Get inside. Go find the boys. I'll get some food."

He opens the door a little wider so John can come in.

Rather than find the boys, which he should do, he gets in one of the cars. He doesn't really notice which one, and for a moment he sits and looks out at the dark salvage yard.

_You break everything you touch_. His father whispers in his ear.

"Dammit," he whispers, which really just sums up everything.

Mechanically he starts the car, and he pulls out of the yard. He drives, his eyes trained on the road. He stops at the grocery store, it's only nine o'clock. He grabs some fruit, water bottles, soda for the boys, some steaks, frozen vegetables, and canned foods. It's not enough. He gets cereal, and sugary snacks. Bags of chips, the kind that he hates, but that the boys always stare at when they go shopping.

"Having a party?" the cahier asks cheerfully as he stuffs everything into bags.

Bobby stares at him, because he doesn't know what to say.

He holds it together as he packs everything into the car, as he drives back, even as he gets into his own silent house and unpacks all the food. His father’s words are still echoing in his head, but he can remember Karen as well. Her eyes welling with tears as she realizes the man she married had been broken all along. He was better now. He was stronger. He didn’t believe what that bastard had told him, and he never would again.

_I can do this_ , he thinks to himself. But the he turns around and realizes that Dean has been sitting at the kitchen table the whole time. The twenty-year old looks devastated. His body in trembling and his eyes are fixed on nothing.

"People die every day," Dean whispers, turning his empty eyes on Bobby. "They die every day, and mostly they don't even know what kills them."

"Dean…" Bobby starts.

"This is all my fault, Bobby. I should have talked to him. I knew something was wrong, but I just didn't… see it."

"Dean…" he tries again, not sure what he wants from the boy.

Dean started to speak, and Bobby had to lean on the counter when his knees turned weak, because Dean described what Sam looked like, lying in some motel tub, with the gun across his chest and a hole through his head.

The hunter realized he can't do this, not now, not ever. He took two long strides across the distance between them and hugs Dean, hard. This is going to change the eldest brother, and Bobby doesn't think he can bear that either.

"I'm sorry, son," he said, "I'm so damn sorry." He’s been distant to the boys. An uncle. He should have been more. If he had done more, none of them would be broken. He was never going to let them go again.

 

NOW

Dean met the Impala after an obligatory circuit of the forest, and was almost offended that there was someone else in the driver's seat. Except… well… there wasn't. He grimaced at his younger self. There was something smug about his twenty-year old face, and he had an itch to wipe the look off with a few well-placed hits.

Adam would twist that into some long winded discussion about self-loathing and why Dean needed to adopt a more healthy perspective. The kid had been reading way too many self-help books. He was becoming Dean's therapist even when he wasn't in the room.

And then he was required to sit shotgun to a teenager, and that was humiliating. The fact that teenage Dean was a good driver did nothing to mollify him.

"So what happens in the future?" his barely-out-of-teens-self asked him, eyes twitching sideways to see his face. It was odd, how young he looked. Thin, untried, all soft and gooey on the inside. Sickening.

"It doesn't matter. If any of this is real, it'll all be different anyway."

"I think you stop taking showers when you're older." Adam chips in from the backseat.

"Shut up, Adam," young Dean snaps into the rearview mirror.

"He smells like a liquor store. And blood." The youngest Winchester was wrinkling his nose to illustrate his point.

"Yeah, at least I could still get the girls. You turn out all scrawny and weird looking."

"You're an asshole," Adam says, his face flushing. The word sounds awkward when it comes out of his mouth, like he's unused to it, "you turn out like dad."

"Shut the fuck up." Dean says, because not even Adam can do that to him. He is nothing like John Winchester.

Blessed silence reigns in the car.

"Buckle up Adam," young Dean says, and that should have been a warning, but Dean's still silently wishing he could kill all these ghosts and get back to stopping the apocalypse. He's taken completely by surprise when the car screams to a halt. The seatbelt digs into him, taking all of his breath.

He's sucking in air, trying to see what Young Dean had stopped for when a fist came from his left, hitting his nose at just the wrong angle.

"Nobody talks like that to my brothers," young Dean Winchester says. He rears back as if he's going to punch his older self again.

The defense is instinctive. Dean strikes out and his knuckles push firmly into flesh, something gives. He released the seatbelt and tumbles out the door and he's outside. He gets to his feet in time to be tackled.

His younger self is fresh, and he hits where he knows where to hurt. He goes directly for the liver, and the pain is sharp, unexpected.

Dean responds with a classic right hook to his own face, satisfied when he clips his opponent's broken nose. The young Dean's response it to knee him in the groin. He was fighting dirty with all the tricks high school had kept fresh in his mind.

It's almost cathartic to see his teenage face bloody and wild.

_Sam's head is bloody and broken. The spray of blood against the wall, the bathtub, grimy and white. I did this. I did this. I killed you. I didn't mean it Sam. I didn't… Please don't…._

He tucks his limbs to his side and rolls away from the fight, springing to his feet when he feels like he's put enough distance between himself and the car. Young Dean hesitates just long enough for Dean to raise his hands in surrender, an unfamiliar gesture when there's this much adrenaline and anger running through his veins.

"Stop," he says, the word a wheeze in the back of his throat. "I'm sorry, kid. I didn't…"

Adam comes tumbling out of the car. "It's okay Dean!" he calls out, "He didn't mean it!"

That's his Adam alright. All young and hurt, but trying to pull everyone together. Taking it all on himself as if he could carry everyone else. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I just… I forgot."

 

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

"Mom?" He  _knows_  it's her. There's not many pictures of her left, John has one he keeps in the journal, and Sam's vision of her is fuzzy. There's the impression of blonde hair and a wide smile. She looked… normal. Like the kind of life Sam wanted.

He wants to say something, to tell her how much he wanted to know her, to love her like Dean and John do, but his throat is swollen shut. She's smiling like the way he knew she would, and her eyes—he can suddenly see that she loves him. His heart aches with the knowledge. She  _loves_ him.

"Oh Sammy," she said, reaching for him with greedy, clutching hands. "Sammy, I wish…"

The blade spears through her chest, gliding like a sliver of pure light. Sam screams. He dropped his weapons and dove under her to catch her before she hit the ground. Blood slid down her white dress, soaking into his hand-me-down clothes.

"No!" he cries out, "No!"

Dean's next to him. "Sam," he said quietly, "Sam, it's not her. You know it's not her."

He can't answer, he's too busy holding onto the inhuman corpse, cradling the monster's body.

After all, this is what raised him.

And that's when he realizes he's gone mad.

 

NOW

The bridge groaned as another bicyclist ran over their heads. Adam had inched his way to Sam's side, trying to warm the boy up without touching him. An idea hits him.

"I'm going to call Bobby, okay?"

Sam looks up at that, panicked. "Don't tell him," he pleads.

"He already knows," Adam says gently, "Dean called him after we got here."

Adam still has one of John's spare phones, and thank god he's already called Bobby on it, the number is still programmed in. Sam's looking at him with wide eyes. It's only two rings before Bobby picks up.

"John?" the gruff voice asks.

"It's Adam. The other Adam. And I'm with Sam."

"Which Sam?"

"There's," Adam has to clear his throat, "There's only one Sam, and yeah. He's from this…uh, timeline, I guess we're calling it."

"Sam?"

Adam shuts up, but listens. Sam is leaning closer to him to hear Bobby's voice through the receiver. His hand, wraps around the edge of Adam's coat as if he's finally trying to get warmer. Adam takes this as a good sign.

"Bobby?" Sam asks.

"Why didn't you call me, boy? I told you to call me if things got bad, I told you to—"

Adam breaks in, seeing the wall coming back to Sam's face. "He's fine," Adam reassures the old hunter quickly, "we're just talking. Catching up."

Bobby doesn’t trust him yet, of course. A twenty-year old Adam is probably a little bit too much to accept over the phone. Still, Bobby knows he’s with Sam, and that’s enough for him to accept the strange situation.

"Listen to me Sam, do you want me to come down there and get you? You can come stay with me for a while, until we figure all this out."

Sam is silent for a long time. Adam can see his throat working, trying to put the words together. He holds his breath, hoping that Bobby doesn't interrupt. Maybe it would be good for Sam to stay at Bobby's. He always liked the yard. There were a thousand places to hide, a hundred dusty games that Bobby hoarded in the basement, just for them.

"I can't," Sam says, almost a whisper. Adam's surprised that Bobby hears him over the phone.

"Of course you can," Bobby coaxes, "I've already spoken to John, and you're all gonna come stay with me for a while, just like you used to over the summer."

"I don't wanna be here, Bobby." Sam says in a rushed, shuddery voice and Adam's freezing fingers clench reflexively around the phone.

"I'll come get you," Bobby says, sounding desperate.

"At the yard, I'll still be  _here_."

Sams crying, but at least he's talking now. Adam heart feels like it's going to sink into the mud, battered and broken. "Don't say that, boy." Bobby says.

It seems like something has broken down now, and Sam can't seem to stop talking. "I thought it would be over by now. I didn't want to be here anymore, and I was… I was so close. Bobby, I can't do it anymore."

"Can't do what anymore?" Bobby asks gently.

Sam is sobbing, clutching at his sides as if he's holding himself together. Adam seizes his chance, and folds Sam down to his chest. Sam resists him for a minute, but when Adam doesn't let go, he collapses against his brother.

"It's okay," Adam says helplessly. "It's gonna be okay Sammy."

But he knows that's probably not true.

 


	7. Stuck in the Middle

NOW

They arrived back at the motel just before dark. The light turned the concrete blue, and the leaves black above their heads. The Impala was parked outside the room, as was John's. It was selfish of Adam, he knew, to want to keep a few more moments alone with Sam. He stopped their progress by the office. "Let's get some coffee first," he offered.

Sam nodded gratefully, keeping his eyes resolutely away from the accusing motel door.

Of course both Deans and John would be hysterical with fear at this point, though Adam had called ahead and told them he was bringing Sam back alive and unhurt.

The free coffee inside the registration office tasted foul, but it was warm, and it burned energy back into the both of them. They sat at one of the small tables where the free continental breakfast would be served in the morning. Sam's hand was clutched around the Styrofoam cup like a lifeline, and Adam grinned at him.

"What?" Sam asked, his face crinkling with distaste at the bitter liquid.

"Just remembering how much you loved coffee."

Sam put the cup down and sighed. He looked up, running his eyes over Adam like he was examining a suspect. It was a measuring glance, and Adam suddenly felt the itch of self-consciousness. "So… Adam, huh?" Sam asked.

"Yup." Adam shifted, drawing his sleeves over his hands, a gesture he thought he had lost in high school. He supposed all this nostalgia was creeping into his head, pulling him back through the years.

"I can see it, you know. You haven't changed much."

"Huh," Adam scoffed, "What about Dean?"

Sam smiled wryly, "Yeah, no. I don't think I'd have picked him out of a lineup."

"I don't know how that happened. I didn't realize how much he changed."

"What happened?" Sam asked, "When-after I…?"

Adam froze, but kept his eyes carefully on the coffee in front of him. "I told you. We got yellow eyes after I graduated. Dean wanted me to go back to school, but there wasn't much—"

"No," Sam interrupted, "I mean… what happened here? Did they leave me here?"

Adam glanced up at him at last, not sure what to tell him. He felt like every word he spoke was just… testing the ice, waiting for something to break and snap him out of this dream. He shrugged uncomfortably. "I was young at the time, but I remember the gunshot. It felt like it shook the whole room. It's all a bit… jumbled to me. Dean knows. God, he's my age now, isn't he?"

Sam nodded.

Adam ran a hand over his eyes, trying to remember that day. He had only been eleven. "There was another motel room, after the police station. A funeral, I remember, because I had no idea what was going on. I'd never been to a funeral before, and there wasn't enough people that knew us, but the priest was understanding. After all the paperwork was done, we gave you a hunter's funeral, and then yeah, we packed up. We went to stay with Bobby for a while. Dad left for a few months, we didn't even know if he was coming back. That's about it, really, until he picked us up again with a lead."

Sam nodded, his eyes distant as he picked at the edge of his cup. "It sounds strange. Like it's someone else's life."

"It doesn't have to be like that this time," Adam said, foolishly hopeful. "It's different already. We can fix it, get you some help-"

"You won't put me in a hospital. I would rather die."

"They can help, Sam—" Seeing Sam's expression, Adam stopped hastily, "but okay. We'll figure it out. You say no hospitals, there's no hospitals, but please don't… please try not to do that again. Let me help. Please."

Sam shrugged, a gesture that didn't exactly bring comfort to Adam, but he didn't want to push it. He had spent so much time reading up on depression, on how he could help, but it all failed him now. There was so much he didn't know about his older brother, and it had torn their family apart the last time. He didn't think he could handle it again, not up close and personal like this.

"C'mon," he said, "we've procrastinated as long as possible. We'll have to face them at some point."

Sam shrugged again, shrinking a little more into Adam's jacket. Seeing his brother closing off again, Adam smiled and nudged him a little. "Hey," he said quietly.

Sam looked up.

"I'm on your side. No matter what happens."

 

NOW

The door opened as soon as they passed by the window to the motel room. It was his Dean who answered the door, and he had no eyes for Sam, but immediately looked Adam up and down for signs of injury. "You okay?" he asked roughly.

"Fine," Adam said, "What the hell happened to you?"

Dean was sporting one hell of a black eye, and his nose looked swollen, like someone had gotten a lucky strike. He scowled, but Adam could tell there was something different about him, something that had loosened. He looked tired, but not as… defeated.

"I'm fine."

"He's not," volunteered young Dean from the single motel chair, "he'd better not be fine, 'cause that means I didn't hit him hard enough."

"Enough Dean," snapped John. He had pulled Sammy away from Adam and was looking him over thoroughly. "What they hell were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry, sir." Sam whispered, his eyes planted firmly on the ground.

He flinched back as John swooped towards him, but was clearly taken aback as the elder hunter tugged him into a firm embrace. "Don't do that again," John said fiercely.

Adam shifted uneasily. John was never one to show affection or comfort, and definitely not fear or anxiety. This was all so different. Only hours ago, Dean and Bobby were the only family he had, and now there were four more Winchesters in the world. Their little family still together, still fighting.

He had to blink back the tears. Dean was tugging him away. "We've got a room next door."

"I'm not leaving, Dean."

"We'll come back," his brother promised, "But we need to get a base together, we need to figure this out."

LATER

Sam lay with Adam curled against his stomach. His younger brother hadn't allowed that for a long time, but tonight he seemed to sense that Sam needed it as much as he did. Dean and John took shifts watching him, and sleep didn't come easy while he was under scrutiny.

John left to help the other Adam and Dean set up the wards in their room, and to get supplies for tomorrow. It was Adam who broke the silence after he left, as if he had been waiting all night for a moment to ask.

"Did you try to leave?" he asked, whispering, though they both knew Dean was listening in.

Sam sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. Tears were threatening to fall again, and he wasn't sure he could hold back the sobs that were starting to stutter his breath.

"It's okay," Adam said, and for a moment Sam could hear the grown up Adam there, with his hard eyes and soft smile. The bur in his voice when he tried to be strong. He was going to grow up like… well, not like John. Not like Dean. He was going to become that strange man who had bought him coffee and listened like he really wanted to know. Adam was going to be just fine.

And then the tears couldn't be held back. Sam tried to turn his face into the pillow, but was strapped between Adam's head and his own chest. The eleven year-old shifted, and Sam thought for a moment his little brother might be trying to leave, but Adam just turned around and wrapped his arms around his chest, digging his cheek to Sam's chest right over his heart.

 _I'm so sorry_ , Sam tried to say, but the words wouldn't come. He kept remembering the bathroom, the cool porcelain against his back, the metal of the gun under his chin. He had pulled the trigger, felt the release as it sprang under his finger, one staccato beat that stunned and thrilled.

"It's okay," Adam repeated, patting Sam's back awkwardly. "It's okay."

Sam didn't even realize that Dean had joined them until he felt his weight on his back, and the muscular arms threading around them both. Dean smelled like machine oil and leather, the scent of home.

Dean's breath ruffled Sam's hair, tickling his ears.

"I love you," Dean told him quietly, so quietly that Adam couldn't hear the words. "But if you do that… I don't think I could… I won't survive it."

Sam clenched his eyelids together, forcing the tears out faster even as he tried to stop. How did he tell Dean that even while he lay here, between the two people he would do anything for, he still hurt? He was still trapped, forced into a shape he couldn't hold.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, and he meant it.

But he couldn't imagine another day of this. The split second of relief he had felt while lying in that tub had been a hit of clarity, of happiness even. He needed it again. His skin itched with the need and it pounded in his head.

NOW

Adam paced the length of their motel room while Dean watched him warily from the edge of one of the beds. "What if we just leave it, Dean? What if we just let this one go?" Adam pleaded.

Dean shook his head, picking at a loose thread on the motel quilt. "We don't belong here. This isn't our time, that isn't our family."

"Not this again—"

"No," Dean said, holding up his hands in surrender, "I get it now. I understand what you were trying to say, but the fact is that while we're here, the apocalypse is still happening somewhere, or… sometime, I guess. Otherwise why would we remember it? Why would we even be alive right now?"

"And what if we just go back? What if Sam's never saved?"

Dean laid a hand on his shoulder, and Adam almost jerked away from the unfamiliar touch.

"Adam," he said, tightening his fingers, "Our Sam is dead. We are who we are, and everything we've been through has still happened to us because Sam wasn't there. If he lives, there's no guarantee that he'll keep breathing, or that we will."

"So?" Adam snapped, taking Dean by surprise, "What has been so goddamn good about our lives that this won't make it just a little bit better? We're all so fucking miserable, taking jobs that nobody wants, losing people every day, never making friends because they'll end up being monsters, or eaten by monsters. I want this Dean, I just want this one thing."

"You have to listen to me," Dean said, now gripping both his shoulders, shaking him until their eyes met. "You're too close to this—"

"You're damn right!" Adam shouted, forcing Deans hands away, "I am close to this, because it's Sam. It's Sam, Dean. It's our whole family right there, whole and alive. You think that's not worth protecting?"

"I'm not saying we don't…" Dean grimaced the tried again. "We will help them. That's what we do, but you have to get some distance and start thinking why we're here. This was a monster, remember? A blue freak who didn't seem that interested in doing us any favors."

"How do you know that? You know what day it was. Maybe it just… it gave us a second chance."

Dean looked down, sighing heavily. "Okay Adam. I'll keep an open mind, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let it go. If this is a djinn—"

Adam's head snapped up, his eyes narrowing, "I'm not gonna do anything stupid," Dean reassured him with a hard smile. "I think we've had quite enough of that, but if it is a djinn or something else, I need you behind me when we kill it or leave."

Adam sighed, suddenly exhausted. The bad coffee burned at his stomach, threatening to climb back up his throat. The entire day had been an emotional rollercoaster. He had been high and low so many times he didn't know how to feel right now. Mixed up and dizzy.

"I need to sleep," he told his eldest brother. "I think I just need some sleep."

Dean nodded. "I'm going to stay up a while, do some research. I'll wake you if anything happens."

Adam slid back onto the bed, and smiled as he felt Dean start unlacing his shoes. "You’re going to do research?" he muttered, "Maybe this is a dream."

"Shut your mouth, and go to sleep."

 


	8. Normal

NOW

The Winchester’s ate the continental breakfast together in the small motel lobby. All six of them picked at their food, barely raising their eyes. Both Dean and John had deep shadows under their eyes, but there was no doubt that both were alert and on guard.

"Boys?" John leaned back as young Sam, Adam, and Dean shifted to attention.

Even after all this time, Adam felt himself start to straighten, ready for orders. He smiled wryly at his food, forcing himself to relax. John wasn't talking to him, but to his kids—the ones he still had a measure of control over.

John continued, "You're going to Bobby's. You'll wait at the motel until he gets here. I'll take these two to a psychic, try and get this mess sorted out. School can wait, I've already called them."

Adam frowns into his food, but he knows now is not the time to fight John on his parenting choices, so it's young Dean who reacts first. "You're leaving us? With Bobby? After last night?”

It’s maybe the first time Adam’s heard Dean question their father. Even if it’s from a Dean in another time-line, in another life, it catches him off-guard.

"It's a hunt,” John explains slowly and softly. His eyes were intent on his eldest son’s face. “We have to make sure that…. That what Sam… did… it doesn't happen. We have to find out what's happening, and the surest way we can do that is to control this situation."

"You can't leave Sam now!"

"Dean," Sam mumbled, his fork buried in some rubbery scrambled eggs, "Leave it. He's right."

"No,"  the older Dean said finally, breaking through the shifting positions around the table as they all started to pick sides. "We're not leaving each other alone. We'll all go to Bobby's if that's what it takes. He's what? Three, four days away?"

"Last time we made it in two," Adam mumbled into his food, then stopped. The entire table had stilled. "Sorry," he said, his face flushing.

"Tell the psychic to meet us at the Yard. It's neutral ground," Dean continued, as if he hadn’t heard Adam, "but I need to talk to Sam alone before we head there."

John put his knife and fork down. "That's not gonna happen."

Adam groaned.  _Winchesters_. As easygoing as a bag of cats.

 

Nine Years Ago

When Adam was young, he worshipped the ground Sam walked on. Sammy was mother and brother. He was smarter than John, especially with Adam’s math homework, and never got frustrated when Adam didn’t know the answer.  He was funny in a clever way too, not like Dean's up-front, dirty humor that frequently got them all into trouble.

Sam understood when something was wrong, and he always knew how to fix it.

He showed Adam how to make cards for Fathers' Day, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. He never missed a school play. He knew when something was important.

Adam knew that Sam would never let him down, because the middle Winchester  _knew_  what it was like to be let down. That made Adam's chest ache sometimes, when it suddenly became clear how many things John and Dean didn't deem important.

Things like school projects were laughable to Dean and invisible to their father, but when Sam had a purpose, a _goal,_ he’d light up with infectious enthusiasm. Adam would stay up late gluing, cutting, and painting with Sam, glowing in the reflected happiness and pride of his closest brother. Sam liked being recognized for good work, by teachers, by classmates, and especially by his family.

Sam liked getting things right.

Adam knew his brother in his bones. Sam never had to be explained to him. It was much a fact of his life as daytime TV, or his father's lengthy absences. It translated directly into their hunting life after all. Sam would pour over ancient books on loan from Bobby, looking for ever more creative ways to keep them all safe. He's practice exorcisms, and a few spells when John was away.

Before his brother died and their little family had gotten lost, Adam thought he understood Sam. Sam was home, and comfort, and safety.

After Sam died, Adam stayed with Bobby for almost a year. Dean stayed for about two months before joining John on the road. They returned to the yard once or twice a month to re-supply and research.

Dean was never too busy to phone at night, and he kept Adam up to date on what they hunted. The heart had gone though, it was like none of them knew what they were fighting for anymore.

Bobby didn't take any jobs while Adam stayed with him. He fixed cars in the front yard while Adam studied at a table he'd set up in the garage. The best days were when it rained and the garage door would be opened up to a thick sheet of water, droplets pounding on the roof, and the tinny strains of Bobby's music almost lost in the noise. It'd be cold, but Bobby would have the space heater on localizing the comfort to where Adam needed it.

Loneliness had never been a part of Adam's life before. Privacy was lost when you shared motel rooms with two older brothers. It had never been silent or still before. Comfortable, yes, familiar and happy, but never… serene.

It gave him time to think. He never thought about Sam, he just couldn't let his thoughts wander there yet. Sam was gone with a noise—a gunshot that echoed in his dreams.

But he didn't let himself remember anything else.

He threw himself into studying, mostly biology and chemistry—anatomy mostly. He quickly overtook Bobby's mentorship with medical supplies. When a hunter came in bloody or beaten, Adam became the one to determine if a real doctor was needed. He helped when he could, and made sure they were comfortable on the way to the hospital if he couldn't.

In that one year, he learned about pain, and hope. He learned about the limits of both. He was only thirteen when John's friends gave him the nickname 'Doc'. Silly for a little kid, and there was more amusement in the title than respect, but Adam took it. Between that and the semi-continuous Doogie Houser references, he felt like he finally had a purpose again.

When Dean came back after every hunting trip a little more closed off, Adam picked up every book he could on coping with grief and anger. Between John and Dean, Adam could write his own book on functioning alcoholics and how to deal with them.

Then he went hunting with his family. Bobby and John fought about it once, in low voices, but John won. He always won in the end. There was nothing on god earth that could stand up to John Winchester when he knew what needed to be done.

Adam’s knowledge grew exponentially in the field. Years passed with Adam learning more and more about to help people. Even after he realized what had happened to Sam, he kept going, getting better and better. Five years passed and the Yard became a base of operations. John took more and more time to himself to hunt the Yellow-eyed demon.

Dean and Adam started to hunt together, always in range of the Yard.

"Ever thought about going to college?" Bobby asked one evening, watching Adam stitch Dean's Wendigo wounds closed.

Adam shrugged.

"You could make a good doctor," the older hunter said gruffly.

"I am a good doctor," Adam returned with mock outrage.

Bobby swatted a hand at him, but Adam moved his head out of the way before the blow could connect with his ears. "You could get a license—" Bobby tried again.

"Since when have needed those?"

Dean snorted and took another pull on the bottle of whiskey John kept for emergencies. "Dean," Adam snapped in warning, "That's not going to help you heal."

"Like hell," Dean said with closed eyes, "If I pass out, you won't have to worry about your precious stitches tearing."

"Boy's got a point," Bobby said, a smile in his voice.

"Yeah, well he doesn't need any more excuses to drink," Adam muttered.

"Shut up, Doogie Houser," Dean said, then winced as Adam pulled a flake of man-talon from the gash. "Alrightalright!" he said quickly, "Sorry! Jesus!"

But he took another gulp before setting the bottle aside. Adam gritted his teeth to stop himself from turning it into a fight.

 

Now

Dean had fought for the half an hour he got with Sam before all six of them headed up to Bobby's. He only got that time under the assurance that John would be watching within earshot, and Sam wouldn't run. The Adams and younger Dean had gone to go get supplies for the road.

Dean leaned against the Impala and watched Sam kick up the gravel that made up the motel's parking lot. He wished he knew what to say.

"I'm sorry," he tried at last, gruffly.

"For what?"

"I don't know."

They studied the gravel underfoot for a moment. Dean wished he had a beer. Words came easier when there was alcohol involved. He cleared his throat. "You got into Stanford."

"How did you—" Sam grimaced, then nodded. "The letter."

"Yeah. We found it about two years after. Pre-law, huh?"

"Yeah."

It had always bothered Dean. "Why law? You never said you were into that kind of thing."

Sam shrugged. "Lawyers help people."

"For money."

Sam rolled his eyes. "It's not about that."

"Then what? You're a smart kid, Sam. You can do anything you like."

"I wasn't going to go—"

Dean snorted. "Yeah, we all know how that turned out."

"Stop saying that! I'm fine! Look," Sam swung his hands out aggressively, "Not dead!"

Dean clenched his fists to his sides. "That doesn't work for me, Sammy—"

"Don't call me Sammy."

Dean ignored him. "You died. I remember it. I remember having to live with it. I have spent  _years_  trying to stop asking myself what I would have done differently. Dammit Sam, I'm trying to help you!"

Sam's hands dropped to his sides. Dean rubbed a hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh. "Look, I just want to know what you want."

For a moment, silence reigned over the parking lot.

When Sam started to speak, his voice was soft, as if he didn't want to break that silence. "When I was little, I used to imagine we were a normal family, when we were in school, I mean. The lies we had to tell the teachers, and our friends, they became easier to believe the more I repeated them. Why we moved so often, why we were injured all the time…"

He paused for such a long moment that Dean thought he might have finished, but the older Winchester just couldn't bring himself to break his brother's train of thought. Eventually Sam's voice picked up again, but it was trembling.

"For twelve hours a day I got to pretend that hunters didn't exist, and then when I got back to you and Adam and dad, I had to remember it all over again, how much I'd seen, how much we had all lost, and I thought… I thought about what normal Sam would be doing. He'd be sleeping, or doing homework, or watching TV instead of picking buckshot out of his family members _._ "

"Sam—"

"I just… That Sam would go to college. He'd become a lawyer, because that's what normal kids dream about. But what would I actually do at college, with the other twelve hours I had to remember?" Now Sam really was crying. "I'd have to leave you and Adam behind, even dad. Who would I be if I didn't have you guys? What would I do?"

"Pick up a hobby?" Dean tried.

Sam dashed the tears from his face angrily. "Fuck you, Dean."

"Sorry," Dean said, but it was the first time Sam had called him by his name. He reached out and gripped the teenager by the nape of his neck and drew him close. Sam resisted only for a moment. Hell, Dean was almost a stranger to him, but he came anyway.

They stood there for a few minutes while Sam tried to control his sobs, but Dean held him close. Sam smelled like peppermint, paper, and dust. Dean hadn't remembered that until now. Sam was his baby brother, one of the foundations of his existence.

He wouldn't move if the entire world collapsed around their heads.

"Kid," he said roughly, "I don't understand this. I never had a choice. I never wanted one, because all I've ever wanted to do is protect you and Adam. You were— _are_ my normal, Sam."

The front of his shirt was wet where Sam had his face pressed to his collarbone. Dean closed his eyes. The war seemed so far away right now. Blue-skinned creatures and angels, they didn't matter right now. This was  _Sam_. "But I've lived in a world without Sam Winchester, and it's not a place I want to go back to. Go be a lawyer if you want to, or stay with Bobby for a few years. I'd rather you left and were safe, than… Shit."

Dean pushed Sam away reluctantly. "But Sam, we need to talk. There are some things you need to know."

Sam wiped his face and stumbled back a little. "What?"

"When you were six months old…"


	9. Deals

Three Years Ago

Adam finishes his senior year. He walked across the stage, and felt a little thrill or pride when he sees Bobby waiting for him on the other side. The hunter is grinning madly. Adam has never seen the man look so happy. He wants to think that graduating high school is not a big deal, but it's hard when Bobby is this excited. If this were really important, he'd have to be disappointed that Dean and John aren't there.

But he's not. He tells himself. He's glad they're hunting, doing something useful.

He accepts his diploma with a smile, and a nod to the audience.

_Sam would be so proud._

The thought hits him out of nowhere, a blow that sinks right into his gut. It feels like a panic attack, but he doesn’t have the time. He has to get off the stage. He stumbles off and back to his seat. He's one of the last to walk, alphabetically he's been screwed since childhood.

The nausea doesn’t go away as he sits down again. Sam never graduated, but he'd been accepted to law school. Adam had applied to schools for pre-medicine just to see if he could get in, and he kept the acceptance and rejection letters in his duffel. Not as options of course, but just… reminders.

_If Sam were here…_

Even if he went to college, he'd have come to Adam's graduation. He'd be out in the center of all the parents whooping and clapping. Maybe he'd have a wife or girlfriend…

He barely registers what's happening when he throws his cap and retreats to Bobby's side. The old hunter senses what's wrong, but he smiles and gives Adam a rare hug. "I'm proud of you, boy."

Adam smiles back. "Thanks Bobby. Thanks for coming."

Bobby drove. Adam had packed before heading out that morning. He only had two duffels. One of clothes and one of books, medical kit, and weaponry. He threw them into Bobby's truck and they set out right after the ceremony, though Bobby had wanted Adam to go to the after party and lock-in at the local arcade.

"It's not really my thing," Adam said.

He didn't want to say goodbye to his friends. He had made more than usual this year, but they would be talking about where they were going and what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. They wouldn't understand.

The drive from Orlando Florida to Sioux Falls, South Dakota was a long one, but Bobby was prepared. He had strapped a cooler of beer into the back of the truck, and had stocked up on road-trip food. Mostly beef jerky, but there were a few sandwiches there too.

They drove to music on the radio, and laughed over stories of Adam as a child.

Adam kept checking his phone, waiting for Dean to call. He knew it was graduation today. He had said he would call, but last Adam had heard, Dean sounded tense, desperate about something. He had refused to admit that anything was wrong, only that he had found John and they were close to the yellow-eyed demon.

"Still nothing?" Bobby asked.

"No." He worried about his brother and father too much these days. Between John's mysterious disappearance, and Dean's suddenly manic desire to find him, Adam couldn't remember how to relax.

They stopped at a park and Bobby got the cooler and a couple of camping chairs. He held a beer out to Adam, who eyed it distastefully. "Come on," Bobby said, exasperated, "We're celebrating!"

Adam laughed ruefully and accepted the bottle. "I wish I had a good influence in my life for a change," he teased.

"You're enough of a saint already, boy."

They toasted and both drank deeply before settling into their seats. Adam picked idly at the label on his bottle, peeling back the paper in long strips. It was peaceful out here. The grass was rough and patched, but the air was cool and heavy, promising a strong rain.

He closed his eyes.

The first few bars of Led Zeppelin's 'Travelling Riverside Blues' screeched from his phone. He fumbled in his pockets while Bobby held his beer for him. "Dean!"

Static answered him. "Dean?"

"It's me."

Adam frowned and straightened, as if John could see him. "Sir?" he asked cautiously. Bobby frowned. So Dean had found their father after all.

The pause was again significant. "Dad?" Adam tried again.

"There was an accident. We're in St. Mary's Hospital Jefferson City, Missouri."

Adam's vision narrowed.  _Dean. Why wasn't Dean calling?_  When had it gotten so dark? How much time had they wasted?

"Where's Dean?" he asked breathlessly.

Bobby was packing up, emptying the beers out and folding up the chairs. Still there was silence on the line.

"Dad? Where's Dean?"

"It doesn't look good."

The line went dead.

###

They were on the road in under a minute.

"Please drive faster." Adam said tersely.

He had his eyes closed, as if that could make the distance smaller. He had a hand clenched around his phone. He couldn't call again. Unless they called him, he wouldn't reach them. It was a ten hour drive to Jefferson City from the park. Thank god they had already gotten some distance from Orlando.

Adam hated being so far away from his family. Why had he been so far away? Why had he put his foot down to finishing the year in Orlando? It didn't matter if he finished high school or had to repeat the year further north.

He would be with Dean right now.

Bobby didn't say anything on the drive. He didn't even ask for directions, but seemed to know exactly where they were headed. Adam bent double in an attempt to stop his shaking. He felt so helpless. He didn't know what was happening. He didn't know who or what to fight.

He didn't know if he was going to be too late.

Time passed incredibly slowly. Adam couldn't look at the road, for fear he would see how slowly they were going. He focused on his shoes. The darkness around the car deepened. The engine hummed underneath them, a constant, reassuring grumble that they were in fact moving. Going _somewhere_.

Led Zeppelin shattered the sickening calm. Adam snapped the phone open and up to his ear.

"Adam," it was John.

"Dad, what's happened?"

"It's going to be okay Adam." John was eerily calm. That did nothing to slow Adam's pounding heart.

"Dean? How's Dean?" he asked urgently.

"He'll be fine."

Adam drew in a ragged breath. He was so relieved he couldn't find the words to thank a god or question his father.

"I love you," John said gruffly.

"Love you too, dad," Adam said. He wiped a shaky hand across his face and let out a huff of hysterical laughter. "Bobby and I are on our way. We'll be there around dawn."

There was a harsh, ragged sound that Adam couldn't immediately recognize. He flinched away from the static. It took him a moment to realize his father had let out a breath like a sob.

"Dad?" he asked.

The line went dead.

 

John (3 Years ago)

In the hospital's boiler room, John finished the chalk circle. He said his incantations quickly, his hands steady over the candles and black bowl. He slid a knife across his palm, draining it into the bowl. Finally he lit the match and drops it in. The sand flared brightly, then extinguished.

He stood. Looking around for the demon.

A hand shot out of the darkness, clenching on his shoulder.

John spun around to see an angry looking security guard. "What the hell are you doing here, buddy?" the stranger asked.

John pulled the colt from the shadows. "How stupid do you think I am?"

The demon's eyes glowed. "You really want an answer to that?"

Two possessed men stalked from the darkness on either side of the standoff and took positions behind John.

" _You_  conjuring me, John? I took you for a lot of things, but suicidal wasn't one of them. Shouldn't be surprised really, runs in the family, I guess."

"I could always shoot you," John said evenly.  _Don't let it shake you. It doesn't matter._

"You could always miss." It laughed. "And you've only got one bullet. Did you think you could trap me?" It tutted patronizingly.

"Oh," John shook his head, "I don't want to trap you."

He lowered the gun. "I want to make a deal."

The demon's eyes narrowed, now truly surprised. A smile was slow to spread across his features. The four of them were standing in a circle around the summoning symbol.

"John Winchester, dealing with his devil. How do I know this isn't just another trick?" the demon asked.

"It's no trick," John said grimly, "I will give you the Colt and the bullet, but you've got to help Dean. You've got to bring him back."

"Why, John. So sentimental! Where was this side of you when poor little Sammy got sucked into hell?"

John had been expecting something like this, but it still shook him to the core. "You're lying." He said.

"The demon's eyes glittered in the half darkness. "Am I? We all know where suicides go. And we both know what else he was meant to be. Who can forget little Sammy at the arrival's gate? Delicious boy, and a  _Winchester_ , you know we needed one of those around the place."

"Take the trade. You care a hell of a lot more about this gun than you do Dean."

"Don't be so sure. He killed some people very special to me," for a moment, anger did play around the demon's face, but the expression was soon forced away. "Still, you're right. He isn't much of a threat. But aren't you going to deal for Sammy? I'll throw him in the bargain, free of charge."

John lowered his head and clenched his hand around the grip of his weapon.

"Oh," the demon whispered maliciously, "that's  _harsh._  So you knew the truth about Sammy? And the other… candidates?"

"Yes."

"I'm almost tempted to go animate him right now, see if you can bring yourself to end him all over again. That's  _entertainment_. You must have been so relieved when he ate that bullet, I wonder if your boys know how much you hated and feared Sammy."

"Can you bring Dean back? Yes or no?"

"No."

John deflated, for once he felt uncertain. Those comments about Sammy had felt like punches to the gut. He had thought—

"But I know someone who can. Let's deal, John Winchester."

 

Adam (3 years ago)

They had driven all night, and still they had arrived too late. Dean was awake and walking around despite the doctor's earnest directives for him to stay in bed. Adam had no focus for anything else. He slammed into Dean with a hug like a bear trap.

"You bastards," he sobbed into Dean's jacket, "You goddamn  _fuckers."_

_"_ Sorry," Dean said. His voice was ragged and monotone, but he was hugging back almost painfully. They hung like that for a few minutes before Bobby found them. Dean pulled away first.

Adam wiped a hand over his face. "Where is he?" he asked.

Dean shrugged. "The morgue. We'll get him out of here before the insurance turns up red flags."

Adam frowned. Dean looked different. He had kept a hand on Adam's shoulder, and the grip he had was crushing. "What happened?"

"Dad dealt. For me."

Bobby sucked in a breath, and Adam felt a foundation of his life crumble away to dust.  _Dad was dead_.

But Dean was alive.

"What do we do now?" he asked breathlessly.

Dean looked down at him, his expression unreadable. "We hunt down the sonofabitch that killed our parents."

"Did he say anything?" Bobby asked at last, still standing in the doorway.

Dean turned to him. "Yeah," he said, "but it doesn't matter now."

 

NOW

"I'm the antichrist," Sam said, "And dad wants to kill me."

He felt strangely detached. Yes. It made sense. It felt  _right_. He wanted to be sick. His stomach hurt with the effort to hold down what little breakfast he had managed to swallow that morning. They had gone way past the half hour John had allotted them, but did that matter? Did anything matter?

"No," Dean said angrily. They had ended up sitting on the curb by the motel room because Sam's legs had been too weak to keep him upright. He felt lightheaded. "You're just a vessel, and Dad just thinks he might have to kill you. He didn't know about the seals… or maybe he did. But he doesn't  _know_  what you'll become."

"Some kind of demonic… vampire soldier."

"Not every Yellow-eyes kid drank demon blood. Most of the ones we met had no idea there was anything supernatural going on in the world besides… you know… their powers. It's only after Dad died that we started to see them juiced up. Most were just good people that got… corrupted. They didn’t even know they were dealing with demons."

"But they did go bad. The ones you found."

Dean hesitated. Sam felt the silent affirmation. "They had reasons, Sammy."

_And I don't?_

 


	10. Devil's Trap

THEN

Their father had been secretive, and manipulative. Hunters survived by grifting, and John just hadn't known when to put down the act.

John never allowed them to believe in a safety net. The danger was immediate and it was everywhere. Everything was coming at once, and being prepared was only half the battle, you had to go out and attack first.

Find the monsters, and hit them while you had the leverage or the surprise.

But Dean had learned one thing in the past few years of hell. John had been wrong about some things.

The lesson wasn't earth shattering, he was only a man after all, but Dean's life had been based around his father's rules for as long as he could remember.

But he had been wrong to keep information from his sons, from Bobby. Cryptic clues and clandestine solo missions were not how the hunting game was meant to be played. Hunters depended on information and trust. They bartered with it, survived by it. When you can only kill some enemies with ancient bones, or silver, or blood-drawn sigils, you  _had_  to know what you were dealing with.

 

NOW

They sat on the curb as Sam took everything in.

John cleared his throat, alerting the brothers to the fact that he had come up behind them. Dean had heard him coming, but Sam jumped.

"You done?" their father asked. It wasn't clear who he had addressed the question to.

Dean kept his eyes on the gravel. "No," he said.

"It's been over an hour."

Dean rubbed his eyes. Hard. "I know. A lot of things needed to be said."

"What did you tell him?"

"Right here, dad," Sam grumbled.

"Everything."

John looked at him hard. "Everything," Dean repeated softly.

"Sam, go inside."

"Dad, I know—"

"Go inside damnit!"

Sam jerked back, and Dean looked up. A familiar surge reeled up inside his chest. He had to fight the urge not to stand and report, to try and draw the attention away from Sam.

Dean closed his eyes. Those days were long gone.

He felts Sam's hesitation, the unspoken plea for Dean to tell their father that Sam should stay. Dean said nothing, and there was a rush of air on his neck as Sam got to his feet and stalked away.  _Such a drama queen._

The smile on his lips felt strange and sad.

"You knew I would tell him," Dean said at last, when he had heard the motel door close.

John moved to stand in front of him.

"You had me do your dirty work for you," Dean said bitterly. "You just didn't have the guts to tell him yourself."

"Tell him what? That I would likely have to kill him in the future? That he was going to turn into something that his father and brothers would one day have to hunt? I wasn't ever going to tell him."

"He needed to know the stakes."

"Does he? How sure are you that what brought you back was doing us a favor?"

"You mean stopping Sam from killing himself? What, that work also too dirty for you?"

John hesitated. "No."

"So what then? What was your plan? Kill him in his sleep when he goes to college? Make sure he never leaves the cage you made for him? I know everything, dad. You can’t lie to me anymore."

 

Five Years Ago (Lincoln, Nebraska)

            It’s the best lead they’ve had for twenty-one years. Yellow-eyes in Lincoln Nebraska with a whole herd of followers holed up waiting for something. It’s a trap, John and Dean both know it’s a suicide mission, but neither one says anything and when Bobby calls to tell him he’s about to watch Adam take his high-school diploma, Dean squashes it down with the rest of the guilt and unease he’s feeling already.

            They’re gonna take this son of a bitch down and make him _remember_ the name Mary Winchester.

            “Whatever it might tell you,” John said as they armed up to the teeth and took a swig of holy water each for good measure, “Don’t believe a word. Demons lie.”

            It was an odd thing to say, but John’s all about secrets and trusting no one, so Dean took it in his stride. After all, they were prepared. They were ready. This is what Dean had been training his entire life for.

            “Take it,” John says suddenly.

            Dean looks down at what his father is offering him—it’s the colt—the gun his father had disappeared for _months_ to find. “Why?”

            “We know it wants the colt, and whatever we’re walking into—they’ll go for me first if they think I have it. I’ll be the bait, and you—you can be the cavalry.”

###

As it turned out, they were not ready. As it turns out, John’s ‘plan’ barely qualified to be called a _scheme_. They get separated as soon as they get into the building. John gets too eager, he takes a gap when there isn’t one and Dean gets caught fending off the demons at his back and trying to set up the escape route.

            The fire-alarm is a stroke of genius. He hasn’t pulled one since high school, and the noise was even louder than he remembered. In the chaos that comes after that—the clueless firefighters herding the residents out the building, Dean keeps going.

            John is tied up and bleeding on the bed, Dean doesn’t think twice. He doesn’t look around for clues or the yellow-eyed demon they had tracked to the apartment building. He doesn’t care about that now. He’s got to get them both to safety and next time they’re coming in with a real force—hunters and guns and a real goddamn _plan_.

            The salt line he just poured is shaky—it’s not going to hold. He cuts the restraints from Johns wrists and hauls him up. An axe hurtled through the door, but Dean was already hauling John out the window to the fire-escape and freedom, pouring another uneven salt line across the sill to stop any pursuit.

            “Where’s the colt?” John slurred in his ear.

            “I got it,” Dean said, stumbling down the step stairs. “It’s safe.”

            “Good boy,” his father whispered. “Good boy.  
            It’s not easy to get to the street, but Dean manages it in a blurry rush of adrenaline. His father is dead weight on his side, breathing unevenly. Whatever they did to him in there, it must have been bad. John doesn’t like to be carried, not unless he was drunk.

            Theres a man running towards them. Dean hears his shoes on the concrete before he sees him, and by the intensity of those footsteps, he knows it’s not the good kind of company.

            Without getting a good look at the guy, he pulls the colt from his waistband and shoots to kill. The man’s body collapses, eyes shifting black and skin flickering as the demon inside it dies. Dean feels a strange mix of emotions in the time it takes him to toss his father into the impala’s passenger seat.

            Relief, because it had been a demon, and he hadn’t just shot an innocent man. Guilt, because he should have saved him, and that bullet had been worth more than its weight in gold. There might have been a dozen better ways to manage that situation.

            But the demon was dead, and so was the man it had been possessing. John mumbles something indistinct from the car, Dean has the feeling his father has been talking all this time, but he hasn’t a clue what he should have been listening to.

            He’ll catch hell for that waste later. John had a _thing_ about civilian lives.

            He doesn’t have time to think of that now. They have to _go_.

###

Dean is as careful as he can be, hunched over the wheel, his heart climbing into his throat as every headlight passed by them. Demons could move _fast_ and Yellow-eyes had a way of organizing his troops that probably spelled out all kinds of trouble for the Winchesters if they didn’t get to good cover soon.

Their rendezvous point is a cabin they’d kitted out before even beginning their mad attack on the apartment building. Dean dumps his father onto the bed before rushing back to the door to reset the salt lines at the door and setting the wards.

“Were we followed?” John grumbles from the bed.

Dean turns to see that his father has regained some of his color, and is sitting up on the bed, working the blood back through his abused wrists into is fingers.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. How could anyone know when it comes to the supernatural. “I don’t think so. I mean, we wouldn’t have found a more out-of-the-way place to hole up.”

John nods. “You did good out there.”

“What happened with yellow-eyes?” Dean asked. “What the hell happened in there?”

“I didn’t see him,” John said. “It was a mess from start to finish. Last thing I remember is getting knocked out. I knew he had a force, but I didn’t… I didn’t expect how well trained they would be.”

If it’s a dig at Dean’s own failure in the field, it hits hard and deep. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he knows an apology just isn’t going to cut it with his father.

What he doesn’t expect is the real confusion in his father’s voice. “Sorry? Sorry for what?”

It arouses his suspicions immediately. “For not having your back in there. For killing that guy. For wasting a bullet. You’re not mad?””

“Mad?” John looked genuinely confused. “I was the one who rushed in. I was an idiot, I wasn’t thinking right, but you—you got us out of there. You put your family first. You always have. Sometimes I think that if I were more like you, if I hadn’t been so blind to everything else, Sam would still be alive.”

John never says that name. Would never. And he certainly wouldn’t say _anything_ like that. It was as if he were trying to focus Dean’s mind on something else.

 Because he doesn’t know what else to say, because there’s a maggot of fear and doubt in his head, the response is automatic. “Thanks.”

John smiled at him. It’s wrong, and as if in response to Dean’s suddenly crawling skin the wind picked up outside and the lights started to flicker—John had turned the lights on? They were supposed to be _hiding_.

“It found us. It’s here,” John said, too quickly—too confidently. “Dean, you got the gun?”

“Yeah.”

“Give it to me.”

Dean took the colt out of his jeans. He held it firmly in his right hand, and the grip was warm in his hand, ready. “Dad,” he said quietly. “I didn’t see the demon. It wasn’t there.”

“I won’t miss,” John said. “You know that. Now, the gun. Hurry!”

His hand is outstretched, insistent. Still, Dean hesitated.

“Son, please.”

Dean backs away warily, towards the table with the weapons he’s laid out in preparation for a siege.

John sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was no wince of pain, none of the sluggishness that had forced Dean to carry him to the Impala. “What are you doing, Dean?” John said. “Give me the gun.”

 “He’d be furious,” Dean said slowly. “He wouldn’t bring up _Sam_.”

“What?”

“He’s tear me a new one.

John looked confused as Dean raised the gun, pointing it at him and cocking it. “You’re not my Dad.”

“Dean,” his father said slowly, evenly. As if he was speaking to a spooked animal. “It’s me.”

“I know my Dad better than anyone. And you ain’t him.”

Whatever-it-is tries to get angry, which might have worked a few minutes ago, but definitely not now. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“I’m asking you the same thing. Stay back.”

John’s brow is furrowed. He looks like he’s thinking hard, but when it clears he nods resolutely. “Fine,” he said. “If you’re so sure, go ahead. Kill me.”

He lowers his head and throws out his hands in complete surrender.

Th colt is steady, but he can’t pull the trigger. He could _never_. That’s his father—one of the few people Dean trusts.

“I thought so,” John said quietly. And when he looks back up, his eyes are yellow.

It’s too late to do anything else. Dean is thrown across the room, the colt ripped from his hands. The demon stood slowly and stretched. He smiled as she retrieved the colt. “What a pain in the ass this thing’s been.”

            “I’m gonna kill you,” Dean spat at the thing wearing his father.

            “That’s be a neat trick,” the demon said, tossing the gun onto the table with the rest of the weapons. “I could have killed _you_ a hundred times by now but…” he sighed and tapped his temple. “Johnny boy screaming at you this whole time has been _so_ entertaining. He says ‘hi’ by the way. He’s gonna tear you apart. He’s gonna taste the iron in your blood.”

            “Let him go, or I wear to god—“

            “What?” the demon interrupted, dancing a little closer to where he had Dean pinned to the wall. “What are you and God gonna do?”

            “You son of a bitch,” Dean hasn’t got an answer, but he knows he is going to get free, and he’s gonna rip this asshole to shreds, but for now he’s been burning with the question for almost his whole life. He’s got the yellow-eyed demon in the same room. Damn the danger, damn the fact that he might die tonight, he’s going to know why it’s him here in this cabin in the woods. “Why? Why did you do it?”

            “You mean why did I kill Mommy?”

            Dean just glares at him until the demon laughs.

            “She got in the way.”

            “In the way of what?”

            It shrugged. “My plans for Sammy. I shoulda killed Pops too—turns out he was a greater danger to my plans than your dear mother ever was.”

            _Demons lie,_ Dean thought to himself sternly. “Don’t talk about Sam.”

            It shrugged. “You asked me, remember? Don’t look for answers you don’t wanna find.”

            It began to pace, it didn’t seem to notice that one of its hands had started to shake. Dean did, but he didn’t stare for long. That was John fighting back. It had to be. Dean silently cheered him on. If he could keep this sonuvabitch talking, bought his father some time—

            “Why was Sam so important?” he asked, though he really didn’t feel like discussing his dead brother with the thing that tore his family apart in the first place.

            “Little Sammy. He’s downstairs, you know?” it winked at him. “Your little bro’s a screamer.”

            _Demons lie. Demons lie. Demons lie._ Dean forced himself to his eyes fixed on his father’s face. “Whatever you say, asshole.”

            “I had such high hopes for him,” yellow-eyes sighed, ignoring Dean. “He was always my favorite,” he covered his mouth and fluttered his eyes in mock embarrassment, then winked. “Let’s keep that between us, huh? The other kids might get jealous.”

            “He wasn’t your _kid_.”

            “Oh, but he was. Maybe not by flesh, but certainly of my blood. You know, you fight and fight for this circus act you call a family, but the truth is, you’re _poison_ to each other. The more you fight to keep the troupe together, the harder and faster you fall. Sam knew it-- that kid was smart. And John knows it—he’s been trying so hard to run away from you, you’ve ended up hunting him harder and further than any monster.”

            “Shut up,” Dean whispered.

            “And Sam—oh he’s so special. You have no idea how much, but of course you didn’t appreciate him. _I_ saw that bullet coming a thousand miles away.”

            “Shut. Up.”

            “If he had lived, you would have ended up hunting him. Little Sammy the monster—all fired up with demon blood in his veins—a good little soldier. Maybe not the one your dad tried to make him, but hey, Sam wouldn’t be Sam without a little rebellion. What do you think?”

            He paused to take in Dean’s expression and smiled. “Oh, you were _not_ ready to hear the truth, were you?”

Dean couldn’t speak through the white-hot incandescent rage. It swallowed everything else. Yellow-eyes smirked. “Well I guess my monologue is finished. I’m sure you’ll be able to ask Sam yourself soon, huh?”

            He clenched a hand and pain bloomed in Dean’s chest. His skin was being pulled apart, he was bursting from the inside out. Blood was quickly soaking into his shirt hot and fresh. The pain was far beyond anything he had expected.

            Even worse than the pain was the helplessness. He was being pushed into the wall by his _bones._

            “Dad!” he screamed at last, “Dad, don’t you let it kill me!”

            His father only smiled and twisted his hand a little more and Dean screamed until blood caught in his throat.

            “Dad,” he choked out. “Please—“

            Darkness was closing around him, even the sensation of pain was fading. He barely heard his father’s voice—his real father’s voice break in a whisper. “Stop,” John said. “Stop it.”

            Suddenly, the force lifted and gravity took hold. Dean crumpled to the floor. “Dean!” John shouted hoarsely. “Dean—I can’t hold—“

            Dean forced himself to his knees and swiped the gun off the table as his father’s eyes clouded yellow again. Despite his injuries, the colt ‘s aim was stead in Dean’s hand, right between his father’s eyes.

            “You kill me,” the demon said through clenched teeth. “You kill Daddy.”

            “Fuck you,” Dean said. The gun tipped down and he shot John’s leg. The demon howled in pain and Dean smiled victoriously through his own haze of pain and blood. He hoped that hurt.

            He could barely keep his arm steady. He was losing too much blood too fast. The table scraped against the floor as too much of his weight rested against it, and he tumbled to the floor again.

            “Dad?” he called to the motionless man on the other side of the room. The gun was becoming too heavy to hold, but Dean used all his energy on keeping it steady. “Dad?”

            John looked up, and it was his father. “Dean! It’s still alive! It’s inside me, I can feel it.”

            Dean squinted at him through a haze of pain and darkness. “You shoot me,” John said harshly, in the voice he used when he needed Dean to focus on the task at hand. “Shoot me in the heart, son!”

            Dean tipped the gun up.

            “Do it now!” John barked like a drill sergeant. “End it!”

            “I can’t,” Dean mumbled. “No.”

            “Do this Dean! Dean!”

            The demon exploded out of John in a huge black plume and disappeared through the floor. The colt fell through Dean’s fingers and he falls. The last thing he sees is the accusation and disappointment in John’s eyes. But he doesn’t care. His father’s been lying to him all along.

 

NOW

"Sam's not going anywhere."

Dean snorted.

John kicked at the gravel, scuffing his boots, and stirring white stone dust into the air. "What am I supposed to do then? Let him go? He's got demons after him, demons that can take his girlfriends, his teachers, his friends. The number of wards I have to put up, every goddamn time we move—And it never stops them. Not for long. I don't know what poison they've been putting in his head when I'm not there—"

"Sam's a good kid. He can make his own choices."

"Clearly."

"Suicide's not a choice."

John was silent. Dean finally looked up, taking in his father's too-old-too-young face. "I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. It's not any better without him."

John took a breath, a short, sharp one. He looked down, then up, then at his hands, which Dean noticed for the first time were shaking. "We wouldn't have to kill him," John said quickly.

And then he let his breath out and he swayed. He was pale and sweating in the cold air.

Dean got to his feet, and was surprised to find that he wasn't angry. Somehow he had known this was going to happen—that this is what John had always thought. How many bottles of liquor had fueled the raging debate in this man's head in the last few years?

Sam had killed himself, and John hated himself for being relieved.

"Maybe," John cleared his throat, "Maybe it's for the best if he… if he can choose to end it his own way."

###

Sam let the curtain drift close. The lump in his throat was hard to breathe around. Dad was right. In the future, he’d become a monster. He’d fall in line behind the thing that had taken away his mother—Dean’s mother.

Whatever the yellow-eyed demon’s plans were, they somehow included Sam.

###

"It's not a  _choice_ , dad," Dean advanced slowly. "Sam thinks he doesn't have any  _options_. He made a decision. And it was a bad one—one that no one should ever have to make. Just because we can sit in the darkness, just because  _we_ can live like this, it doesn't mean that Sam can. He's not at fault, or stupid, or crazy. You’re blocking all the damn windows, the door. He can’t see any way out. _"_

###

_Dean,_

_I'm sorry._

Sam tapped the pen against his chin, staring into the middle distance. He just wasn't good with words. Everything sounded… stilted. Adam would have been great at this, but what could Sam do? Ask him for a critique on his suicide note?

He cringed at the thought… At the name given to this piece of torn note-book paper.  _Suicide note_. Why did he feel like he needed one now? What more was there to say than 'I'm sorry?'

_I love you._

_I can't_

I can't what? The list was endless, and it started with things like 'breathe' and 'live.'

They were going to be so angry. They were going to be so… sad. Sam leaned over the desk and slammed his head onto the desk. Fuck.

_Fuck._

He tore the paper into strips and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

_Dean,_

_I'm so sorry._

Fuck.

His hands trembled.

The door opened and Sam whipped around, his hands slamming over the evidence.

"Bobby's here!" Young Adam announced, bouncing in through the door with his hands full of shopping bags. Dean came in behind him and stopped at the sight of Sam sitting alone in the semi-darkness.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

Sam raised his eyebrows innocently and worked his throat.  _Fucking words_. "Nothing!" he said, his voice a squeak. His brother stared at him suspiciously, and once again Sam couldn't help but notice the differences between this Dean and the one that had been through hell.

_Does he know? Does he need to know what’s in store for him? That’s his brother’s a satanic freak? That their destined to kill each other?_

But there was no time for that thought to sink in because Bobby appeared at the door, and Sam unwisely tried to smile. He could feel it twisting on his face, the misery betraying him. He needed to act  _happy_  dammit!

He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, really.

Bobby was suddenly there, clumsy and unsure. "Sam—"

And then Sam couldn't do anything else. He sobbed into his own hands until Bobby wrapped him in an awkward hug. "I'm sorry," he tried to say—he couldn't stop saying it, but the words were so garbled he had to keep trying again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  _I'm sorry."_

"It's okay, boy. It's going to be okay."

_Lie. A lie. It's all going to go so horribly wrong. Did you know that I'm supposed to end the world, that my whole family dies, that I'm addicted to demon blood. That I killed my mother, and probably all my friends? Did you know that I'm a demon?_

_It doesn't matter. I’m leaving… tonight._

###

They ate dinner and Bobby talked about the changes he had made to the yard. The conversation was delicate. John and Old Dean avoided each other's gaze, but Sam's eyes kept catching on the two older Winchesters.

Would it be a comfort to John now, to know that Sam was going to take responsibility?

He talked cheerfully with Bobby and ten-year old Adam about the road trip they would take tomorrow. It was no trouble at all to use the correct pronouns. Tomorrow  _we_  will have to go pick up snacks and gas for the road.

But every time, there was an electric buzz. Tomorrow  _you_ willhave to pick up salt and gasoline.

It was a hedonistic pleasure, a frightening thrill that flipped his stomach and shocked him with vertigo. SO much better than a rollercoaster. Sam was high, flying on a fucking kite. He had given up on the note. It's not like he had anything left to announce.

_Salt and burn my bones. Salt and burn my bones._

"This is really good, Bobby," Sam said.

Bobby beamed. "Good to see you eating. You're looking like a wendigo there."

_Salt and burn my bones. Salt and burn my bones._

Sam laughed a little too heartily, and the conversation waned as all five Winchesters watched him carefully.

_Tonight._

He grinned down at his plate, at the dish Bobby had carefully prepared for him. He had helped prepare it—had carefully sifted the mash potatoes.

He'd be prepared this time. No time-travelling brothers could make him miss.

###

Bobby sat down to read in a chair, a small heap of books on the table beside him. John and Dean had protested that they could take the first watch, but they were all feeling effects of the mashed potatoes now.

Sam crawled obediently into bed, closely followed by his Dean and Adam. The other two sat at the table, talking quietly with Bobby about the blue skinned creature.

_Good luck. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._ The younger Dean and Adam fell asleep peacefully on either side of him, and Sam pretended to do the same.

Bobby's head slammed down onto the desk. Sam winced and hissed in sympathy.

"Time we went to…" the Older Adam started, his words slurring together. Sam looked up in time to see his younger-older brother try to stand from his chair and collapse onto the ground.

"Adam?" the older dean asked, his voice wavering. "What-?"

Sam sat up. Dean was looking at him, his face starting to register horror. "Sam, Sam what did—"

"I'm so sorry," Sam said.

There was the sound of shattering glass from the bathroom and John emerged, his shirt wet with water, fumbling for the gun on the nightstand. "Boys," he started uncertainly, and fell to his knees. "Boys there's something—"

"I'm sorry," Sam repeated, looking to his father now, "I'm so sorry. I'm going to fix it I promise."

He vaulted off the bed and grabbed his father’s fire-arm. They were all now too gone to stop him.

"Sam, don't, just… fucking… Just don't." Dean said, the older Dean. He was trying to resist, but Sam had been thorough.

"I'm so sorry.”

"Wait. Sam, just wait—" His eyes closed involuntarily. "Sam—wait."

 John's torso fell to the floor like a sack of meat.

"Sam…Please… Don't."

Sam switched off all the lights and lay back down between Adam and Dean, the gun a comforting pressure against his chest. He closed his eyes for a single moment, savoring this last memory, this last moment on earth.

And then something happened.

- _Come_.

Sam started in bed and scrambled back as he realized something was standing at the foot of his bed. There was not much light in the room, only a dim glow from the bathroom tucked away in the corner. It was barely enough to see the silhouette of a massive man standing at the end of the bed.

And his skin was blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is slightly different from the chapter posted at Fanfiction, but I figured the 'Devil's Trap' canon/AU fit better here than later on. I hope it's okay, if not... I might take it out.


	11. With A Whisper

Ten Years Ago

The teacher's face was strange, because it was so familiar. Mr. Abernathy's teeth were grinding together and his eyes were hard, but his words were soft and gentle. "What happened?" he asked. "You have to tell me. I can help you if you tell me."

The temptation was greater than Sam could ever have imagined. He looked down at the bruises on his arm, clearly a handprint. It had been a ghost—just some old woman who had lost her marbles long before she had even died. There's a long, jagged cut on his upper arm too, clumsily stitched by Dean in the back of the Impala. If his shirt rode up any more Mr. Abernathy would see it too.

"Sam you can talk to me," Mr. Abernathy said. And he looked as if he was the one trapped in a nightmare. He was desperate for Sam to say something, to let him be the hero. It's so hard for Sam to be quiet, he  _likes_  Mr. Abernathy. He's the best teacher Sam has ever had, and Sam has had a lot of teachers.

But that came with a price. Good teachers followed up when John didn't come to parent-teacher conferences, they noticed when Sam limped, when he missed class, when he had hand shaped bruises and inexplicable cuts. Most of all, they didn't shrug off the lies, they asked questions, they caught Sam in lies and excuses.

And Mr. Abernathy really  _cared._

Sam had been at this school longer than any other so far, and he loved Mr. Abernathy's class. He laughed with his whole face, made history fun. He let the kids hang out in the classroom during lunch to watch boring documentaries. He's got a daughter Sam's age, and lately she's been trying to hang out with him after school. Sam knew it's because her father asked her to, because he thinks Sam needed friends.

And Sam had thought he had been so careful, shielding her advances, making excuses not to see movies with her and her friends, he hadn't realized he had fallen into Mr. Abernathy's trap until it was far too late.

Let your guard down  _once_ …

"I really want to help you. Whatever your dad said, whatever he threatened you with, if you just talk to me now, you won't ever have to see him again. He can't hurt you anymore if you just  _talk to me._ "

Sam closed his eyes as if that could force his mouth closed as well. Oh, the temptation. A normal life just a few horrible words away. But Adam came to his mind. And Dean. They couldn't stay together if he spoke now. They'd hate him forever for breaking the family apart. The reasons were so simple, and he tried to make the solution just as simple. His emotions were chaotic, but he forced them away, and made himself numb.  _Winchesters don't cry. Winchesters fight._

"Let go of me," he said, trying to keep his face still, and his voice even, but he could feel his chin start to tremble.

"Sam, you're a good kid. You need help—"

" _Let go of me_ ," Sam said again and his voice came out low and angry. Mr. Abernathy let go immediately, as surprised by Sam's outburst as Sam was. The Winchester quickly pulled his sleeve down again. He had thoughtlessly rolled it up to clean the blackboard.

"Sam—"

"You don't know anything," Sam said, picking up his bag. His hands had started shaking.

"Sam." Sam doesn't know why he stopped. His hand was still on the doorknob. He waited. "Sam, I have to report this."

"Don't," Sam said.

"I have to. It's—"

"I'll say it was you," Sam said quickly.

The words soured in his mouth, and Mr. Abernathy looked hurt. The silence between them was shallow. There was a rushing sound in his head. When the silence became too much, he felt he had to say it again. "You tell anyone, I'll say it was you. I'll say my dad saw the bruise and you were afraid he'd report it if you didn't. They'll believe me."

He knew it didn't make sense. He knew and still he forced himself to open the door, to walk through it, and to close it again. He was so  _weak_.

It's lunchtime. Sam used the phone in the nurse's office to call Dean. Only a few quiet words later and they were in the Impala, picking Adam up from the nearby elementary school. Their little brother is  _furious._  He was always good at making friends, and they had really settled here.

"Can't Sam just change schools?" he whines at Dean, because he knows that speaking like that with John is liable to get him menial chores for a week.

"I'm sorry, buddy," Sam says, even though he still feels like there's gravel in his stomach and the world is spinning under his feet. "We all gotta go before someone else gets suspicious."

"I really liked it here," Adam says, and Sam wishes he could just tell his youngest brother to shut the hell up. His eyes are burning and he already feels guilty enough. Dean had been going steady with a cheerleader—one that liked to read. She was nice too. She actually talked with Sam and Adam, would happily spend a night watching TV with them instead of going to a party.

Dean hadn't loved her at first. She didn't seem to care about that, but lately Sam had seen his older brother eyeing jewelry in the mall. Necklaces and bracelets. Stupid things she could probably buy instantly with the pocket money she made in a week. For Dean, it was months of money he had saved up from odd-jobs and pawn-shops.

Sam had really messed everything up this time.

Just the fact that Dean wasn't answering Adam's complaints is enough to show his displeasure at the coming mad dash across state lines. "Maybe we should wait until tonight," Sam says. "Maybe you and Abby could stay in touch, if she knows that—"

"Nah," Dean says it easily, but Sam can see his fingers are bone white against the wheel. "It's about time we hit the road anyway."

John has already packed by the time they arrive back at the hotel. He's livid, frustrated, but he doesn't shout. He lets Adam and Dean put everything in the car while he takes Sam to the office.

They stop outside the doors and John puts a heavy, hand on Sam's shoulder. "I know you know how much time I've put into this hunt," he says, his voice low and even.

"Yes," Sam says. He helped set up John's cover.

"So, I need to know that we did  _something_  here that made it all worth it."

Sam stays quiet. He's not sure what to expect. But John prompts him with a hand shake on his shoulder. "So?" his father prompts him.

Sam looks up into his father's hard eyes. He finds unexpected gentleness there, and it kind of makes him want to cry. "What did you learn?" John asks.

"I'll be more careful," Sam says. "I'll never let it happen again, I promise."

"You can't trust anyone," John says slowly, impressing every word. "You can't let your guard down. Never get too comfortable with civilians. They will never understand."

His fingers are clenched on Sam's shoulder, just above the long, winding gash that had only just started to heal. Sam wonders if John has forgotten about the cut, or if the pain is part of the lesson.

It's so hard to tell these days.

# # #

NOW

Sam wanted to call for help, but everyone was well sedated. He had been  _so_  thorough. The gun was on the night stand, only a foot away, but the distance might as well have been miles.

"I won't let you hurt them," he said, his voice wavering. There's nothing he could really do about it either way.

_Sam,_  the blue thing said. There was no inflection in his tone. He could have been angry, sad, or happy. He was all at once and none at the same time. It was hard to see its face for some reason. Even with light from every angle, Sam only saw the impression of features through thick shadows. There's a slight variation in the shades of black that tells him it has a nose. Lips. A forehead.

Sam swallowed thickly, if he could somehow distract it, he could reach for the gun. But then he couldn't be sure a bullet would put this thing down.

_I know how cold you are,_ it said _, and how alone you have been. I understand Sam. I am the only one who can._

"You're… it. You're the thing that brought Adam and Dean."

_They were going to lose the war._

"You mean the apocalypse?"

_I wanted to save them, and their world. Without two Winchesters, the board remains in stalemate._

_"_ You mean," Sam swallowed, his tongue thick and dry in his throat. "Lucifer will win?"

It shook its massive head.  _Even if Michael kills Lucifer, the world will be enslaved as surely as if the demons inherited the earth._

"What do you want from us?"

_I want you to come with me._

"Where?" Sam asked, then realized he should probably ask the more obvious question. "What are you?"

It said nothing, just held out a hand. The fingers outstretched in invitation. Sam swallowed, looking back up to the strangely blurred features. He couldn't read any emotion through the darkness, couldn't even see the things shoulders rise and fall with breath. Any time it stopped moving, it froze completely, like a statue.

_Come with me, and I will explain… everything._

A blue hand appeared on his shoulder and its touch numbed everything. The world around him seemed to drop away. All fear, trepidation, the eternal weight in his chest. None of it seemed to matter anymore. In place of the chaotic emotion, he felt something... better. Peace. Acceptance.

He touched the blue man's fingers, and after a little jolt of static electricity, he felt only coldness. It started to seep up his arm. He might have felt panic for a moment, but the peace came again, flattening everything else. He didn't know how else to describe it, and he didn't much care anymore.

Once, he had felt hollow. He could remember that dimly as the figure helped him to his feet. His eyes drifted over Dean's face, his older brother's chest wasn't moving. Looking around, he realized that no one else seemed to be breathing anymore either. Adam was so still, a lump. A corpse under the covers.

A twinge of something hot flickered in his chest. Rage? Fear? Grief? It was squashed in an instant. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, and it felt  _amazing_.

_I am so sorry,_ the figure said. It sounded unbearably sad.

"What is this?" Sam breathed, but his thoughts were muddled. Shouldn't he be screaming? Why? For the first time in his life he felt free, and light.

_It's time._

###

They appeared in the echo of a gunshot. The noise and force still echoed around the white bathroom walls. The blue man let go of Sam, and he stumbled a little to regain his footing. The peace that had come with its touch was gone, and in its place was a maelstrom of confusion and sickness that rolled in his stomach.

And as he turned away, because he felt the need to vomit, he saw his corpse there in the bathtub. The same bathtub he had stepped out what seems like years ago, though he knew it was only yesterday he stepped into the porcelain coffin.

"Sam!" his father called through the door. Sam flinched away from the noise, but the blue creature stood at his back, blocking his retreat.

_They won't see us,_ it said in its dead, monotonic tone.  _Or hear us. This has all already happened, it is just an echo._

The door was locked, Sam could still remember the click of it against his fingers when he had closed it for the last time. It rattled against the frame as John shook the doorknob.

It’s so strange to see his body there. Bloody and pale and dead. It wasn't like he imagined. He didn't look free, or happy. He looked as empty and as damaged as he felt.

"SAM!"

"Don't come in!" Sam shouted back, his voice cracking. The panic was real and hot, clenching his lungs in talons.

_They cannot hear you_ , it repeated dully.

Sam swung around, he could feel his heart in his chest. After the peace he had felt a few moments before, this was too much. "I don't want to see this," he said quickly, desperately. "Take me back. Take me back now."

It said nothing. Through the rolling shadows, Sam couldn't tell where it was looking, much less what it was thinking.

The door unhinged under his father's foot and Dean stepped into the bathroom a pace behind John, gun at the ready, scanning the room for whatever Sam had been shooting at—

The world lost air. Sam saw Dean's face, and it was like watching a train wreck. It all happened so  _slowly_.

Dean buckled. His knees hit the ground solidly, with an audible crack. Sam winced, taking an involuntary step forward. Dean just looked through him, blind to everything. Adam was behind John, forgotten.

"Sam?" the youngest Winchester asked, as if he was expecting an answer. Sam tried to block his view too, but it was useless. He wasn't there. He had  _done_ this.

"I don't want to see this," he whispered, and seemingly in reply Adam began to scream.

"Sam! _Samsamsamsamsamsamsam_ ," over and over again. Sam covered his ears, but he couldn't block the sound. Finally, John turned, his face was bone white, his hands trembling even as he sheathed his gun and pulled Adam to his chest. He was grabbing at Dean's shoulder, scrabbling at the cotton fabric, but there didn't seem to be enough strength in his fingers to catch the fabric.

In the end, he had to leave, had to get Adam away, and Sam was grateful. The door swung closed behind him, and it was just Dean, his face frozen in an expression Sam had never seen on his older brother before.

It was disbelief, sort of. But worse. Failure, and regret and a deep hurt that Sam knew intimately. He had carried that same kind of pain himself, but it was different. His had been a sickness, an unseen tumor growing inside, rearranging him slowly and insidiously.

What he had done to Dean… it wasn't a growth. It was a wound, something ragged and uneven, chaotic and immediate. Messy and bloody.

"I don't want to see this," he said again, but he was no longer talking to the creature that had brought him here.

Dean crawled on his knees to the dead Sam in the tub, his hands were shaking as he reached out. He didn't seem to know that he was saying Sam's name, the same endless loop as Adam, but his was soft and tentative. He wasn't demanding. The noises were hopeful, as if he still believed that Sam was going to look up.

He patted the dead Sam's face softly, like he was trying to wake him up. There were still trickles of blood racing down the wall, pooling on the ledge between bathtub and wall.

"Stop," Sam said, his voice ragged. "Please."

_You must see this._

"I wouldn't hurt them," he said as Dean's hands fluttered over Sam's body as If looking for a different wound. One he could maybe heal. "I'd rather die."

_I know._

"Sam?" Den whispered, louder this time, as if he were waking up from a stupor. Sam backed away. He was going to throw up. He was going to die. He was going to stop breathing. Anything. Literally anything to get away from this.

Sam?" Dean said again. "Sam, don't—"

His voice cut away suddenly, choked back. Sam closed his eyes, but he wouldn't be able to see anything else for a long while.

The door opened again and John was back. Adam was not in his arms anymore, and this time he lifted Dean bodily from the ground. Sam had never felt more gratitude towards his father than he did in that moment. "It's too late Dean," John said. "Come on. We have to pack up the guns, we have to call the police. Dean, get up, Adam needs us."

"It's Sam. Dad, we have to…" Dean said, sounding years younger than he was. He pointed at Sam, as if John couldn't see.

"There's nothing we can do, Dean. We have to  _move_."

The creature took his arm again, and the anesthetic touch washed over everything again, erasing the pain and the guilt. Sam watched his father bodily drag Dean from the bathroom, closing Sam's body away in the glaring bathroom light, glaring and horrifying. Sam welcomed the emptiness again. If this is what death felt like, he couldn't wait.

###

When they reappeared, it was dark and heavily wooded. The air was spiced with smoke, enough to make Sam choke. He pushed himself away from his kidnapper, breaking the contact first. It wasn't right to feel that empty, that free. It wasn't  _right_.

_This is what I am trying to stop_ , it said.  _I am not the monster here._

And looking up, Sam could see the smoldering remains of a pyre. It had burnt so hot that the ash was white and feathery in the center—dust holding the shape of wood. It was a hunter's funeral, and he knew without doubt that this was where he had burned. The stench of roasting flesh still saturated the air.

He bent over and retched into the grass. "Why are you doing this?" he croaked at last, when his stomach had settled and his nose could no longer distinguish the scent in the air.

_You are… different, Sam. There are certain things in this world, in all worlds, that cannot be changed. There are moments that must happen, trials that must be faced. There is an order._

"I don't understand, please. I don't want to do this anymore, please… just…"

Just what? He didn't know what he wanted, only that he wanted it so badly that his chest was trying to crumple in on itself. Did he want to go back to the hotel room and the loaded gun? Did he want to go all the way back, to that moment in the bathtub, when everything had seemed so perfect for an instant, his finger tightening on the trigger.

But he could no longer think about that blinding ecstasy without the image of Dean kneeling on the tiles, broken and bewildered.

Everything was ruined, torn down around him. He had only wanted his freedom. He had only wanted to stop hurting, but the torture went on and on. It would never stop. Not even death could cure him.

He didn't even realize he was making a sound until it was filling his ears, a low, hysterical hum swallowed quickly by the surrounding forest.

_You are apart, Sam,_ the creature said,  _but the fate you chose was wrong. I have wasted so much time hating you, but it's time to change it. To change everything._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved the response I got from the last chapter! Thank you everyone!


	12. Without

NOW

Sam leaned against a tree. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Dean on the floor, and Adam's cries rang in his ears. John's  _face_. His stomach lurched again, threatening to send him dry-heaving for another five minutes.

_Pathetic_ , the creature said, it had been quiet for a long time, flickering in the same spot, deep shadows clouding its face despite the light of dawn breaking through the trees.  _Weak. You haven't changed at all._

"Stop it," Sam said weakly.

To his surprise, it didn't say anything else. It was as still as an image in a photograph, but it flickered unsteadily, all the time. He took a deep breath and straightened. He wasn't dead yet, he reminded himself, the scene in the bathroom hadn't happened. Not to him, anyway. Not to his Dean, or his Adam, or their father. "What are you?"

_Outcast,_  it said.  _It is what all creatures and their makers call me. The name chose me, and in time I embraced it._

That didn't answer anything, but playing twenty questions with a monster was probably not a good idea anyway. Sam knew he should be running, but he had nowhere to run to.  _"_ What do you want? Why are you doing this?"

_I brought your brothers back because their world was going to die. I gave you a second chance out of deference to their pain, but you wasted it again. Why did I take you away and show you the pain you caused? Because when I kill you, I want you to know how much you will suffer. What do I want? I want you to beg for your life Samuel Winchester._

_###_

_NINE YEARS AGO_

John didn't talk about Sam, after the middle Winchester punched a bullet through his skull. It was the silence that finally got to Dean, the ragged, septic hole in their family. It ate away at them all, even Adam who didn't  _really_  understand what happened. It was like he had somehow erased the memory of that day from his mind, like the blood and the hysterical  _SamSamSam_  was just… gone.

For a while Dean thinks Adam has forgotten about their brother completely. It feels like he's the only one who thinks about Sam, the only one who remembers a time when there were four of them, not three. Every day he feels an empty space where Sam should be.

He can't ask Adam about what his youngest brother is thinking. Adam spends all of his time shadowing Bobby in the yard, or reading in the front room while the hunter is away. He's stronger than the rest of them, he's a small kid, but he helps John up the steps to his room when the older man is too drunk to move by himself. He leaves sandwiches for Dean to find outside his room, or on the workbench when Dean is working on the junkers.

It worries Dean that Adam hasn't asked any questions. It seems like Sam never existed to him, and his guardians have always been half-crazy with grief, an involuntary defense his child-brain had cooked up in a hurry. Any word might break that spell. Any mention of their missing brother, of the gun, and the extra duffel might destroy that illusion. Dean wasn't about to do it.

Adam hasn't cried since that night, and Dean knows. He sleeps lightly these days, and he can't help but strain his ears to hear Adam's gentle snores on the other side of the room. How could Adam sleep when Sam had just disappeared from their lives? How could he sleep without worrying that Dean might now do the same?

Because it's crossed Dean's mind a few times, fleeting, horrifying scenarios and justifications. He has nightmares that cross into night-time hallucinations and back into nightmares that he takes his gun and follows Sam. He dreams that he's hunting and his finger hesitates too long on the trigger. It's terrifying how much he wants the thing of claws and darkness to rip into him. He wants Sam back so much, the guilt makes him physically sick.

For weeks Dean wakes up in Bobby's spare room after only two or three hours of fitful sleep, running through the checklist of where his brothers are, where his father has gone, how much food they have, and what they should be doing to get to school on time. The responsibility is ingrained too deep, too much a part of who he is to disappear completely. .

He wanted so badly to scream and cry and break the world, but he had Adam to look after. He had his father to  _hate_ , and he had so many unanswered questions, it was like he was hunting blind. There were no rules to this monster. Werewolves—Silver. Revenant—silver. Wendigo—fire. Ghost—salt and iron. Mother killed by demon - Revenge. These were all simple equations, facts of his life.

But his brother had shot himself in the head. Sam had blown his brains out in a locked room, with his family a dozen steps away. Where was the logic in that?

The first time Bobby took Adam and left Dean and his father alone in the scrapyard, Dean had found his father at the kitchen table, staring at a half-drunk beer.

He doesn't remember exactly what he said. The memory is just a messy noise in his head, all jumbled words and phrases he can't imagine himself ever voicing to his father.

_How could you—_

_Where were you—_

_Why didn't you—_

John takes it all passively, staring straight ahead. Only the constant twitch in his jaw tells Dean his father is listening, but it's not enough.

When Bobby and Adam came back, his kitchen was torn apart, glass littered the floor. Two of the wooden chairs had been reduced to kindling, even the short curtains over the sink had been torn down, one side of the rod still attached to the wall, the other resting in a dent it had made in the sink.

And John sat untouched, with the same blank look on his face as Dean leaned against the counter, trembling as the strength drained away from him with his anger.

"Dean?" Bobby asked cautiously.

"Sorry, Bobby," Dean said, and his voice was coarse and hollow. "I'll fix it."

He does. It takes him weeks to repair the damage done in one blurred hour. He fixes every scratch and dent, even though it feels futile.

###

For a while afterwards, on Bobby’s gentle nudging, John took him out on his hunting trips, but just leaves him a few counties over with a therapist in Montana who knows about the life. She doesn't like John very much, but that suits Dean fine. He'll follow his father's orders in front of a machine gun, but he doesn't like to look at the man anymore.

She tried to get him to talk, and Dean didn't know why he kept coming, because he never spoke to her. He didn't play any of the games she set out for him, or read any of the books, or watch any of the movies. He listened to her talk, because it distracted him for a while. Distracted him from what—that’s never clear.

They didn't tell Adam. It was part of that delicate balance that could tip at any moment and break the only Winchester who still seemed to be going strong. It didn't last long anyway because of course the therapist got knifed in the back with a strange silver stake. John took note of the method, but the lore didn't turn up anything on what kind of monster she might have been.

"I'll find someone else," John said after they'd salted and burned her, just in case.

Dean shook his head, watching the linen catch. "No," he said bleakly. "It wasn't working."

John's never been one to doubt Dean. And he never believed in talking anyway. He just nods, and is maybe relieved he doesn't have to drive to Montana once a week.

She had talked a lot about 'moving on' and 'letting go'. In between the long stretches of silence while she waited for him to speak, she talked a lot about healing and forgiveness.

Dean didn't want anything to do with that.

###

NOW

"You're going to kill me? How is that going to change anything?"

_If nothing else, I'll enjoy it._

"Do you know about me?" Sam asked, forcing the words out as he stood up. "About what the yellow-eyed demon did? And Lucifer?"

_Of course_.

"Then why did you try to stop me? You said you wanted save the world, and my brothers. If I'm alive, I'll destroy it all! I'll hurt people, I'll… I'll kill Dean."

_You'd have to say yes first. Lucifer can't possess you without permission._

Sam snorted before he could stop himself. Tears were stinging his eyes and nose. He was hysterical and trapped. "You think I'll say no? After all this? Isn't it proof enough of what I am? You were right! I'm  _weak_  and everyone knows it."

_Dean broke the first seal on Lucifer's cage,_  Outcast said calmly.  _You alone are not responsible. As for saying yes to Lucifer, didn't you wonder where you would go? Before this you didn't think much about Heaven or hell. You didn't believe in it at all, despite everything you've seen. But now? Knowing that there is one, don't you wonder where you were? Why Lucifer's followers didn't resurrect you right here, right now, to begin preparations?_

"I—" Sam swallowed.

_They needed a Winchester on the racks of hell. A righteous man, kin to Abel and Cain. Thousands of years of breeding to produce the brothers who could be vessels for Lucifer and Michael. Alive or dead, you are of interest._

"Hell?" Sam said. "I was—I'm in hell?"

_You spent five hundred years in hell, and the best and brightest of their torturers tore you apart and put you back together, and tried to break you every day, but you refused the reigns. No matter how they tried, what pain they inflicted, you never said yes._

"Five hundred years?" Sam whispered. His skin crawled.

_Time is different in hell, time is different everywhere. They built you a very special level, all to yourself, and the reward for making you break was freedom from the pit._

The blue creature paused.  _I think I will take you there._

"To hell?"

Sam was already backing away, but Outcast was supernaturally fast, in the blink of an eye, it was standing a few inches away and its arm whipped out and closed its huge fingers around his elbow.  _To hell._  It said.

###

Two Years ago (Adam)

Dean's got one hundred and twenty two days left before his deal comes up short. Adam celebrates by drinking with a false ID. He doesn't know what else to do. It didn't help. It just made everything worse, but it was the only coping mechanism that was tried and true by the hunters’ less than scientific method. He was drunk by the time Dean found him there. He's surprised Dean found him at all, this is that last place he'd expect to find himself.

The thought makes him want to laugh, but at the sight of his older brother's face, he realized it's really the last thing he wants to do.

"What are you doing here?" Dean asks him, his voice tight and unhappy.

"Trying not to think about my brother killing himself."

It's the wrong thing to say, but he can't bring himself to care anymore.

Dean's hands press down on the bar and Adam clarifies with a sigh. "I mean you, dickhead."

"I'm not killing myself," Dean growled, motioning the bartender over. "Can I get a whiskey? Double. Neat."

It's supplied in short order and Dean hunches over the tumbler as if afraid someone is going to snatch it out of his hands. "I'm not killing myself," he said again. His voice lower.

"You're not saving yourself either," Adam said. "Four months Dean. That's four months I have left to see how much you don't care about your own life. Your own _soul_. You don't wanna be saved, I can see that. I know that, but I can't understand it… Sam would have-"

"I'm not Sam," Dean snapped. "Don't ever say that"

Adam shook his head. "That wasn’t… I wasn't going to," he said quietly. "But what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Dean said. He tried to smile. "I'm fine, just enjoying what I have left."

"I don't want to do this without you," Adam says, his voice barely above a 's surprised that Dean hears it, and jerks reflexively as his brother's hand closed over his arm.

"Don't you dare," Dean said harshly, voice gruff with emotions that neither of them share anymore. Not unless they're both drunk, or on their way.

"It's true," Adam said vehemently, his mouth is numb from and he's feeling reckless in a way he never has before. "What do you think I'm going to do?"

"You find Bobby," Dean said. "And you keep going. You go for as long as you can. I don't care if you stop hunting. I don't care if you find someone else to hunt with. You keep going."

###

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

It was Dean's nightmare. He knew it was, because he's taken the dreamroot and he's going to gank that Freddy Kruger wannabe, and then he's going to sleep for a week, damn the time he's got left. If he's going to hell in four months, he's going well rested with a belly full of the best damn cheeseburgers in these United States.

But he recognizes the motel room with a jolt—the table where he had raced Adam and John. The bedspread with stripes of yellow and green. It's the motel room where he lost Sam. He's not sure when it stopped being a dream, but when the gunshot echoes out, he's breaking his shoulder against the door. Maybe he can save Sam this time, maybe he can—

"Sam!"

The door broke open and his mouth was already open to scream Sam's name again because he could see the body in the tub, and all the blood he thought he could forget.

But it was Adam there. Head thrown back, gun caught on his trigger finger, eyes half-open and already glazed over with death. Dean closed his eyes, ignoring the speed of his heart and the scream that wants to tear out his throat. Adam wouldn't. Didn't. Couldn't. He knows that. Sam is long dead, a precious memory, but a memory all the same.

What he doesn't expect is to turn away and be confronted by his own face locked in an expression he wasn’t feeling. He stumbled back.

 " _Hey Dean_ ," it said. It’s his voice, but different. Softer, more intense.

He took a step back, grasping onto this new thread of dream logic. "Well aren't you a handsome son of a gun," he rallied with a smile.

" _We need to talk,"_ the doppelganger said softly.

Dean nodded and began to walk in a circle, as did his dream self. They're walking in the same direction, circling like territorial dogs. "I get it. I get it. I'm my own worst nightmare, is that it? Kinda like the Superman III junkyard scene? A little  _mano y mano_  with myself?"

Dream Dean's face didn't twitch an inch towards anger or amusement. " _Joke all you want, but you can't lie to me. I know the truth._ "

Dean stopped, they had changed places now and he was standing by a small writing desk, the only light in the room coming from the small lamp on top of it. He wasn't sure if he liked this new development. What was he supposed to do here?

" _I see how dead you are inside. How worthless you feel. I know how you look into a mirror… and hate what you see._ "

Forcing a smile onto his face, Dean shook his head. "Sorry, pal. It's not gonna work. You're not real."

Dream Dean cocked his head to the side. It was eerie how tired he looked when he wasn't smiling. Dean felt off-balance. He was supposed to be in control here. He  _was_ in control here.

The hallucination wasn't helping at all. " _Sure I am_ ," dream Dean said. " _I'm you._ "

"I don't think so. 'Cause see, this is my siesta. Not yours." He raised his left hand. "All I gotta do is snap my fingers and you go bye-bye.

Dream Dean was staring at him intently, it was kind of freaking him out, so he snapped his fingers. The little click echoes around the hotel room. The smile faded from his face. Nothing happened. He snapped again, but his evil twin just watched him. He snapped three more times before he let his hand fall. He never realized before just how well his own face could communicate  _I-told-you-so_  without words.

_"I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."_

The door slammed shut behind them both, and locked with a definitive series of clicks.

_"Like I said,"_ dream Dean said, raising a sawed-off shotgun in his right hand. Where the hell did he get a shotgun?  _"We need to talk. I mean, you're going to hell and you won't lift a finger to stop it. I have something to say about that."_

Dean started circling again. The door locked from the inside right? But there was no guarantee he could open it, and even if he could, where would he empty out to? He was clearly not in control, despite all this happening in his own damn head.

He walked and tried to think. The bathroom was still open, but there was no way in hell he was going in there.

_"Talk about low self-esteem_ ," dream Dean chuckled. " _Then again, I guess it's not much of a life worth saving, now is it?"_

"Wake up," Dean whispered to himself. "Come on, wake up."

_"I mean, after all, you've got nothing outside of Adam."_

Dean stopped in his tracks and his doppelganger did the same. He was by the door again, but he was rooted to the spot.

_"You're nothing,"_ his dream reminded him. _"You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog."_

Dean smiled in denial even as he found himself hanging on its every word. "That's not true."

_"No? What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car? Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought?"_

Dean shook his head, wanting to scoff, but there were no words left.

" _You killed Sammy,"_ it whispered spitefully

Dean’s throat closed—the words he had never spoken—the thought he had never dared to think, and it lingered in the air. It could not be unsaid or unheard.

_"Watch out for Sammy,"_ it mocked, triumphant at Dean’s silence. " _Look out for your little brother, boy! You can still hear it, can't you? And look what you did, you let him down. You let him put that gun to his head, made him eat that bullet."_

It tapped the shotgun against its head and Dean flinched. He didn't like to see a gun so close to his own head, even if it was on a nightmare's shoulders.

It smiled. _"I can hear it,"_ it said. " _Clear as a bell_."

Dean shook himself clear, forcing his smile wider. "Just shut up."

Dream Dean lowered the gun _. "I mean, think about it…"_ it walked towards him, and Dean forced himself to stand his ground. " _All John ever did was ask you to take care of them. He trained you, he bossed you around, kicked you to the curb when you slowed him down. He kept so many damn secrets because he knew you couldn't be trusted. You_ failed _to save Sam."_

They were standing inches apart, and there was nothing but his own face in his field of vision. "Shut up. I mean it."

_"Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier, and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. He didn't care whether you lived or died. He wished it was you,"_ he jerked his head towards the bathroom where Adam's corpse was. " _Every day after that, he wished you were the one that was gone. Adam too—you think he wouldn't trade you for Sam in a heartbeat?"_

It was enough. "Son of a bitch!" Dean pushed himself hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk. "My father was an obsessed bastard!"

The doppelganger tried to get up, but Dean kicked him down onto the desk again. He held the shotgun like a bat and hit him again before pinning him to the wall with it.

"All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He—"

He stepped back and swung the weapon again, hitting dream Dean twice in the face with a satisfying crunching sound. "He's the one who let Mom die! He's the one who gave Sam the gun and told him he had to use it. He was the reason we were in that motel room!"

He pinned Dream Dean again. "He wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me! Sam died on  _his_ watch. Sam wanted out and Dad wouldn't even  _talk_  about it. Adam knows why Sam died! It's not my fault!"

He backed away, the gun determinedly pointed at his own chest. "I didn't kill Sam. And I don't deserve to go to Hell!"

In the heat of the moment, not thinking about anything other than his own rage and desperation, he shot twice. He lowered the weapon to stare at his own blood-spattered corpse. He took a hesitant step forward, looking down at him when suddenly the doppelganger's eyes flickered open—pupil, iris and sclera all pitch black.

_"You can't escape me, Dean. You're gonna die. And this? This is what you're gonna become!"_

###

When he wakes up, he tells Adam. He knows it has been weighing on his little brother, and that makes this twice as hard to talk about. "I don't want to go to hell."

Until he said it, he didn't know how much it would raise the stakes, but it did. Adam’s face turns hard and determined. He looks a lot more focused and happy than he has for months.

Dean knows that even if they don't find a way out of this, Adam will be just fine. He'll keep going.

###

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC


	13. Hellscape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh… I apologize? Gore is not my favorite. But it is hell, so… gore is sort of prerequisite. Also, very little editing in this one. I'm going to have to go back and edit everything again. I swear every time I look at an earlier chapter, the errors glare out at me like 'shifters on CCTV.

 

TEN YEARS AGO

 “It hurts,” Adam whispered to Sam. Through the dark and cold, Sam felt the wound in Adams leg as if it was his own. The long black claw was lodged deep in Adam’s thigh, and it wobbled steadily. It was close to an artery. It might have already punctured the artery and Sam was wasting precious time waiting for rescue. Adams blood and the storm-muck all turned black under his flashlight.

 “I know buddy,” he whispered back. “But we’re gonna be topside soon, and Dad’s gonna take care of it.”

 “I don’t want to. I wanna go to the doctors,” Adam said. “It hurts that bad.”

 Sam swallowed. “I’ll take you,” he said, and is proud of how his voice doesn’t waver at all. “I promise. I’ll take you straight there, I don’t care what dad says.”

 He was cramped in the close confines. He had just started another growth spurt and the tunnel has scraped up his knees, shoulders, and elbows pretty badly. His ears still rung from all the gunfire in the concrete tunnel.

 “Dad said less than a ten percent chance it was gonna go through the tunnels,” Sam said, trying out a shaky laugh. Adam followed suit as best as he could, but it sounded like he was choking. “Just a precaution—just a—“

 “Don’t blame dad,” Adam interrupted him. “We gotta save them. We gotta kill it.”

 He could be bleeding out and Sam had to be honest with himself, they were lost. In the darkness, underground, and Dean and John could hardly fit into the drain tunnels. Hell, Sam barely fit. “It’s dead,” he assured his little brother. “I made sure of it.”

 “That’s good,” Adam said weakly.

 They sat in silence for a while after that, until Adam’s breaths became labored, then went silent and Sam’s heart began to constrict. “Adam?” he called frantically, in the flashlight Adam’s face was white and blue and still. “Adam, are you—“

 “Sam?” his brother whispered, eyes fluttering in the brightness and Sam could breathe again. He flicked his light onto Adam’s chest.

 “Yeah?” he said quickly.

 “It really hurts,” Adam said, his voice blending in with the strange echoes of the tunnel system. “I’m sorry, I—“

 He started to cry _._ He simply collapsed into the sobs he had been trying to keep at bay, and before Sam could reach up and comfort him, his little brother was _screaming_. Sam hadn’t heard such a hysterical noise come from another human being in a long time. The noise paralyzed him. He didn’t know what to do.

 “Adam?” he said, reaching out a tentative hand, but unsure where to lay it. “Adam?”

 But Adam kept screaming louder and louder until it was tearing at Sam’s ear drums. The noise was unbelievable, indescribable. It tore straight into Sam like a knife. “Adam, you gotta—“

 He said a lot of things to try and calm his brother down, and none of them really worked. Minutes, hours… it felt like time wasn’t moving at all. The scream went on and on and Sam was crying too hard for any words to find their way out by the time Adam passed out.

 Then there was darkness and silence and the eerie blue light from the flashlight. Adam’s chest shifted too lightly for Sam to properly see. He had to watch that long black claw tremble to Adam’s pulse. It was the only way to tell that his little brother was still alive.

 For months afterward, everything smelled like rotting vegetation and blood and that peculiar scent of monsters. Adam’s scream was so vivid in his memory that his imagination inserted it into his dreams night after night.

 He was crying when John and Dean finally broke through the concrete. Catatonic in the car as they drove back to the motel. “We need to go to the hospital,” he said dully, Adam’s head was in his lap, the ten-year-old was still unconscious.

 “He’s going to be fine,” John growled. “Where are the guns?”

 “Lost.”

 The Impala swerved as John hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Dammit Sam! Do you know what it takes to get our guns?”

 “Please take him to the hospital,” Sam whispered. “Please.”

 “Dad—“ Dean said gently. “maybe we should—“

 “He’s fine!” John said. “It missed the muscle—there’s a toxin in the claw, but he’s going to be fine in a couple of hours. He’ll just need stitches—“

 “Dad, I want to go to the hospital.”

 It's like John hasn't even heard him. Maybe he hasn't, Sam thinks dully. Sam's just fading away out of John's life. “I’m dropping you boys off at the motel, and then I’m going back to finish the hunt.”

 “It’s dead,” Sam said. “I killed it.”

 “I’m gonna make sure of that,” John insisted. “You boys lock up the room, and I’m gonna be back in a few hours. Get Adam comfortable. He’ll be fine once he wakes up.”

 He did drop them off at the motel, and he peeled out of that parking lot to go back for a monster Sam knew was dead. But the brothers don’t even open the door to their room. Dean hot-wired the manager’s car and the three brothers go to the hospital by themselves.

 Ten years ago, John almost hit Sam for that betrayal. Almost. Ten years ago, Adam got antibiotics, self-healing stitches, and a colorful band aid. They were on the road again by dawn the next day.

 In hell, Adam dies screaming and their father fractures his jaw with a single blow. Dean watched with a face carved from stone, Adam’s school backpack hanging off his left shoulder.

Sam knows it’s not real, he remembers how it really happened. But the truth gets fuzzier every time the demons make him live through it. They only do it when they’re bored, but Sam would take the dissections and flaying ten times over for every one they build that tunnel around him.

###

Now

Hell, as it turned out, was a motel room. The features are blurry, but Sam recognized it as every single motel room John has ever booked them into. It’s strangely cheery, though the bedsheets, wallpaper, and curtains are all recreated in dull colors.

 Sam was being reassembled on one of the two beds—the Sam who isn’t standing next to Outcast, taking in all the horrifying details. The Sam in hell is older, and emaciated to the point that he imagines he can see the lumpy outlines of cartilage keeping the bones strung together.

_You read once,_ Outcast said _,_ his voice calm and unaffected by the scene in front of him, _that eating in Hades would trap a soul in the underworld forever. It is from Greek mythology, and the rule does not apply in hell. Your captors thought the hunger was another layer of torture. They would have force-fed you to bursting if they knew how much strength your hunger gave you._

Sam’s not sure what sound came out of his mouth, but it came from somewhere deep and guttural. There is a man there, working. He’s wearing John’s face, and his eyes are pitch black. He ignores Sam and Outcast, his expression frozen in concentration.

_It is a flaw in their make-up,_ Outcast said. _Demons themselves feel so much hunger they can’t imagine it as anything other than a carnal punishment. They themselves are so afraid of pain and what it made of them, they cannot imagine that it built you up. It took you only thirty years to learn what they will never begin to grasp._

“No,” Sam says. There’s something in the air here that reminds him of when he was young, afraid to turn out the light and let the monsters sneak up on him. He imagines that anywhere he looks there will be wide, dead eyes staring right back at him.

 He can’t look at what is happening right in front of him. It’s too much—it’s far, far too much.

 They bring Adam in. Twelve-year old Adam, though judging by how old Sam looks, the real Adam would likely be in his mid-to-late teens by now. The Sam on the bed watches his younger brother scream. Adam's eyes are missing, cleanly scooped away, and he’s screaming, but the boy's voice had already long gone, whatever organs are making the noise in his throat—they’re not meant for the purpose of sound.

 It’s the most horrible thing Sam’s ever heard, and it’s coming from _Adam_.

_Watch_ , Outcast said as Sam turned away. His whole body felt like it was burning. How could anyone—

_Watch_. The blue giant snarled, and Sam’s head snapped around and he was frozen, his eye-lids opened to watch as the torture continued. It went on and on. The golden summer light through the window never dimmed—it was impossible to know how much time had passed, and there was barely a word spoken in the room. Sam’s jaw had been locked by whatever Outcast had done to him, but he could still sob—the noise coming choked and muffled out of his locked body.

 And then the demon wearing John’s face stopped.

 It produced a single sheet of paper. Sam couldn’t see what was written on the paper—it was a garbled mess of sigils and symbols in black and red ink. It waved it slowly in front of Sam, like it was trying to get a dog on the scent of meat.

 And for the first time Sam’s eyes began to shift. He looked up at the demon, and he shook his head.

 It shrugged and the paper disappeared.

 And the torture began again.

 Sam’s joints unlocked. He was finally allowed to turn away, and he did.

_This is the closest you ever came to saying yes._ Outcast said behind him and Sam could tell the blue creature was still watching the torture go on. _Today was the closest you ever came, though it was a day much like many you knew and would know. But you said nothing. Can you imagine how inventive they could have become, had they known? If you had shown a single instant of weakness, this is the day you would have broken you._

“How do you know?” Sam asked finally, when he had swallowed his bile. “How are you doing this?”

 The shadows over Outcast’s face shifted. It was unnerving how Sam couldn’t pinpoint the features on its face but he could _feel_ its consideration. _You told one person your story,_ it said finally, _One person._

_“_ I told you?” he whispered.

 Outcast shook its massive head. _You told John Winchester._

###

A Hundred Years of Hell.

 “How could you?” Dean’s pitch-black eyes bore holes through Sam. He knows it’s not really Dean. It only took a century to see past the moderate illusions the demons could cast. But when it’s Dean or Adam, and sometimes John, he doesn’t play spot-the-difference.

 He misses his family so much he’ll take the torture they deal out.

 “I’m sorry,” he says, and the demon is probably fighting off a smile. It’s not often they can get him to say anything.

 “Sorry’s not good enough,” Dean says. Perfect, that’s perfect. That’s just how Dean would say it. “Sorry isn’t going to fix anything. Sorry’s not going to make all the shit and the blood and all the _mess_ that you made just disappear.”

 He hits Sam, and the pain is the good kind—the kind that actually punishes.

 “I’m sorry, Dean,” he sobs. “I’m so fucking—I—“

 “I’m not going to believe anything you say to me right now,” Dean said, leaning in. “You wouldn’t stick around for me, yeah, I get that. But do you know what you did to Adam? You sure fucked that kid up.”

 “I’m—“

 “You’re sorry,” Dean said. “Yeah. Keep saying it. Maybe one day it’ll sound like the truth.”

###

Three Hundred Years of Hell

 “Why?” Adam asked. He doesn’t look a day over the ten years-old he was when Sam died.

 “I couldn’t take it anymore,” Sam told him, and his voice sounded strange and hoarse in his own ears. How many years had it been since he had spoken? “I was… weak. I was going to get you killed.”

 Adam pouted. “Sammy,” the demon said, the human features melting away from its true face. “It’s no fun when you steal my lines. Your heart’s really not in it today, is it? Where are the apologies? The tears? I’m playing all your greatest hits. I have to meet quota or my boss is going to disembowel me.”

 “It’s been over three hundred years,” Sam said drily. “Adam’s long dead.”

 “Keeping track are we?” it smiled. Or approximated a smile. True demonic mouths had a difficult time expressing anything. “And badly at that. Most stop counting after a few decades. But I can tell you a secret. This is a very special level of hell built just for you— time crawls when you’re being tortured. Barely two years have passed topside and your little brother just turned fifteen.”

 Sam’s thoughts slowed as he tried to work through this. “You’re lying,” he said.

 It shook its head, still with that horrific twisted expression. “We’ve got eyes on them all the time. You know, I saw him take some of the recreational poisons out of John’s little trunk of tricks? The hard stuff, too. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Who knows? Maybe you’ll have a roommate soon.”

 “I know you’re lying.”

 “If you sign the deal,” the demon said. “I’ll drop the kid into a psych ward for you, make sure someone keeps his hands out of that particular cookie jar. Scout’s honor.”

 “Fuck you.”

 “No judgement,” it said. “If your junky brother is laid up on some flea-infested mattress, sharing needles with the neighbors, who are you to stop him? You made your position very clear.”

 It waited, but Sam turned his eyes away resolutely. “Oh, right,” the demon said, “You’re the one who gave him all pain he’s trying to dull. It _is_ all your fault.”

 Sam screams for the first time in years, but it’s not out of pain. It’s rage—the purest emotion he’s felt in a long, long time. The demon is lying. Even if it were true and Dean and Adam and John were still topside, Dean was looking after Adam.

 Dean would keep him safe. He was always the better brother

 

###

After four hundred and eighty-six years of hell he knows he’s not human anymore. A human would not be able to see through the walls of hell or the dimensions that demons are constrained to. He’s been tortured for half a millennium, and nothing has changed. It’s been long enough that he’s started to see the texture of hell. He’s trapped in it, caught between two threads.

Then again, he has gone insane. He can be honest with himself about that. He’s been trying out a heightened sense of self awareness for about two hundred years, since he started trying to pinpoint the exact moment when the demons take him down to the barest atom of existence.

Yes. He’s mad. He flew over the cuckoo’s nest for a dozen decades ago. He knows that, but it doesn’t change much.

His torturer hasn’t moved from the aspect of John Winchester for centuries now, but Sam doesn’t really care. He knows the things that made John Winchester, not just his blood and nerves—that was the easy part. No. He known the fire and the clay in his being, and all the emotions that John Winchester’s soul is subject to.

So when they brought in his father's fresh soul, he when it was real. Older, and bloody from a recent, painful entry to hell. One of the demons had already had some fun trying to break him, but John Winchester's eyes were still lit with a rage that he knew well. When those eyes fall on him, or the shape that his soul had taken, the rage abated. Horror dawned.

Sam’s torturer was still wearing his impression of John—the John that Sam left behind five centuries ago, so the differences were even more obvious. The real John was tired. He can see that now. Plus, the demons could never recreate John’s blind anger, the hatred drawn in lines across his face.

“You _motherfuckers!”_ John screamed out and wrenched at the demons holding his arms. “I’ll fucking _kill_ you!”

The demon howled its appreciation, reveling in its victory, but John had no attention to spare on them. “Sam?” he says instead, his voice breaking. “Sam--- Sam oh god, oh Jesus. What have they—“

“John,” he said cordially, as if he didn’t know or feel that the entire left side of his body had been dissected and pulled out for his own personal inspection. The word felt odd on his lips, and he realized he had never actually called his father by name. Sir and dad, but never John.

The demons tore his tongue out quickly after that, but Sam waited patiently.

After a while John stopped screaming at their torturer to stop. Sometime after that, he stopped sobbing. Then it was not long until there were no tears. It was strange how much a soul wants to keep the shape of a human body—as if it had the same limits. He wanted to tell John that he could keep crying if he wanted—there’s actually no shortage of water in his soul’s mimicry of tear ducts.

But he’s mad. What does he know?

Finally, he was remade, and offered the contract. He refused.

And then, with a touch of reverent hope, his warden held the contract for John’s inspection. Sam’s father was ashen faced and trembling against his restraints. “I’ll stop,” the demon said. “We’ll stop if you sign here. If you’ll become one of us. We’ll leave Sam alone. We’ll put him somewhere nice and safe and _fluffy_.”

He watches with interest. He’s sort of forgotten that he’s even a part of this scene. It’s been such a such a long time since he’s interacted with anything. John refuses, to the surprise of absolutely no one in the room.

Still, with a hiss of impatience, the demon hits John, hard. Sam hadn’t seen anything sharp on the demon’s hand, but somehow the blow had opened a long gash across John’s face. It bled freely. “We’ll see what Azazel does to you,” he said. “You’ll _beg_. You’ll both _beg._ ”

It slammed the door on the way out, presumably to find a superior, and it made him want to laugh. The demon hadn’t bothered to restrain him, his wardens probably didn’t think he could move, as emaciated and atrophied as he was, but his soul isn’t flesh and bone. It’s just holding a form that makes sense to it. He gets up out of the bed for the first time in three hundred years without effort.

John let out a hiccuping sob as Sam gently helped him off the meat hooks he had been mounted on. They staggered back to the bed. “Sam,” John whispered. “Sam, I—“

“It’s okay,” he whispered back, his voice thin and scratchy from disuse. His words sound like they’re being ground out between stones. If he had more of a voice left, he could shout or scream, confident that they would not be disturbed. For now, in this dimension, they were entirely alone. “How’s Dean? How’s Adam?”

John hadn’t run out of tears. Sam’s father lunged forward and pulled him into a hug. “Sam. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged out of his father’s grip. It was odd, to touch another soul. He wasn’t sure he liked the sensation. And his father… he didn’t like the words John was saying. They were wrong- even the tone made his skin crawl. “Stop apologizing to me, you shouldn’t do that.”

“It was my fault—“

Sam tunes John’s words out for a while. It’s worse than what the demons have said to him through their impressions of his father. If they _had_ said any of it to him, he would have laughed himself sick. Shock, he muses as he watched his father’s face move. Is this what shock looked like on a John Winchester with no access to alcohol? His father was going to have to withstand a whole lot more torture than what had occurred today.

“I’ve been here for five hundred years,” he cut through John’s monologue at last. It must have seemed arbitrary, but he was just starting to realize, looking at his father’s haggard face, that John was… young. Untried.

“I’m not…” he struggled to find the words. ‘I’m not human’ came to mind first, but John would balk at any interpretation of _that_. “I’m not Sam.” he finished.

It was true. He hadn’t thought of himself as Samuel in quite a long time.

 

 


	14. Outcast

 

NOW

_And then. The seals broke. They no longer needed you. They no longer wanted you. A pure soul in hell is as much a corruption as a demon in heaven. Quarantine wasn’t enough. They had to get rid of you._

***

1 YEAR AGO

They took him to the gates of heaven and dropped his soul there, just outside the dimension.

The first angel that stumbled across him swept, and the sound tore at the tendrils of his soul. There was no mirror that could show a soul, but he knew five hundred years of torture must have done something truly terrible to his essence.

The angel was miles tall. Taller than any skyscraper he could imagine, and yet it held him in its hand so carefully. He felt like a dandelion seed that could blow away in the wind as the giant opened its mouth to speak.

But he heard its voice in his ears as if it were just a man, talking beside him.

“I am so sorry, young one.”

He didn’t feel young. He felt ancient. “There’s been a mistake,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“I feel the weight of your soul,” the angel whispered. “It is heavy, but not with sin.”

Something else approached, and with it came a feeling of love. It was as if he was being held close to his mother’s chest—a feeling he could hardly remember.

His soul pulled towards that feeling. He _starved_ for it.

_It is an abomination_ , the new presence hissed. _Not human anymore. Its soul is twisted, not fit for paradise. Not monster, not fit for purgatory. Put it down and leave it here. We can do nothing for it._

“We cannot abandon him. He is one of our creatures. He is our creation, Raphael. Do you not remember when we knelt before mankind? We vowed to them--”

_I vowed to Father. And that vow is abandoned, as he abandoned us, as we must abandon… this._

“Look at him, brother. He should have been sheltered. What have we become without Father? This undeserving soul has been forced into such agony for so long? Surely now, we have a responsibility to heal him? To look after him?”

_I said no. It is because of him that our plans have been so long delayed. We do not reward rebellion. Now. Put it down. Leave it here. I will not tell you again._

What had once been a human was gently lowered. The soft, steady hands were gone. The light was gone, and the love was snapped away as the angel and his master left. He shivered alone. Broken. Forgotten. Exiled on the edge of heaven, a world of hell boiling inside him.

But he wasn’t alone. Shivering, in another dimension, forgotten by his family, in another place, another time, there was another.

_Sam. Adam._

***

5 YEARS AGO

They travelled around so much, and some towns just… attracted more trouble than others.

“Adam? Adam Winchester?”

Adam didn’t recognize him at first, but that didn’t last long. The scarred left side of the strangers’ face gave him away. There were people that you didn’t forget. Your first kiss is one of them. Adam hasn’t been attracted to a guy since, but he remembers Connor, the way the kid tried to hide his scars—the evidence of his piece of shit father’s drunken aim with a broken bottle.

But Connor is seventeen now, and wears his scars proudly. His hair is cut short, no longer hanging over the scars in a tangled mess, and his smile is roguishly crooked. He looks… happy. It’s the thing about him that’s changed the most. “Connor?” he asked cautiously, suddenly very aware that Dean would be back from hustling the pool tables very soon.

Connor grinned and held out a hand. Adam took it, careful to put the blessed silver cross against the other man’s skin. No screaming, no burning, nothing but an old friend.

“I looked for you all over the place, man,” Connor said. “Facebook, twitter, fuckin… myspace and shit. What the hell are you doing back in town?”

“Passing through,” Adam lied, trying not to get the creeps that Connor had been trying so actively to find him for so long. Myspace? Jesus. “And you’re what, a bartender now? How?”

Connor shrugged. “Fake ID and this face? Manager doesn’t look too hard in the face of my tips. I figure he owes me one for getting my old man juiced up in the first place. I’m saving up for college.” He slapped a glass in front of Adam and filled it with a concoction of from several exotic bottles.

 Adam wished he could wave it away, neither of them was old enough to drink, but he didn’t want to refuse a gift. He took it and drank with a grimace. He was used to the odd beer. Connor made his drinks far too sweet and alcoholic, but right now Adam couldn’t complain.

“So how’s your old man?” Connor asked, putting away a complicated array of bottles.

“Missing.”

“Same!” Connor replied cheerfully. “How are your brothers, then?”

Adam almost choked on his beer. “What?”

“Two right? Dean, I remember. Mostly ‘cause of his car. And the other one...” he snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to remember.

Adam stared at him.

“Don’t tell me,” Connor laughed, his eyes screwed up as he attempted to recall such a distant flash of memory. “I’ll get it. I’ll get it in a second--”

“Sam.”

“Sam!” Connor raised his beer. “So what is the nutty professor up to these days?”

“He’s…” Adam’s brain fuzzed for a moment. It had been good, just catching up with an old friend. The drink was far too alcoholic. The words that slipped out of his mouth shocked even him.

 “Sam’s a lawyer.”

“I knew it,” Connor said, pausing, his hand spread out on the bar. His focus was intent on Adam, the smile wide and even though the scars puckered his face. “I can see him now. Got his own law firm.  A pretty secretary, and six kids, right?”

“He works for the ACLU,” Adam said. His eyes were burning. He couldn’t smile He stared straight at the bartender even while he feels like the world is slipping away underneath his bar stool.

Connor’s smile changed slowly. It slipped away from his face. Adam realized that he was breathing too heavily. It didn’t sound normal. He didn’t feel normal. Connor reached out. “Hey, are you…”

“He’s married,” Adam blurted out. “Got a kid on the way. Maybe… maybe he’s got a dog.”

“Adam--”

“He lives in California. That’s where he went to school. Stanford, you know. _Fuck_ —”

He was crying. He was fucking crying in the middle of the day in a grungy bar. A hand clenches around his shoulder and he pulls away, because he knows it’s Dean. He has to get out of here—he has to breathe.

He stumbles out of the door, his lungs crushed thin. His breaths heave through his throat but he doesn’t feel like they’re helping. He pushed out of the door and out into the mid-afternoon light. He stops and feels like screaming, but he doesn’t have the breath to push it out.

“Adam.”

Deans voice centers him. Adam rocks back and Dean is instantly nearby, a hand held out as if to catch him, but he doesn’t touch. He knows not to hold Adam still. “Look at us,” Adam says through numb lips. The words are mumbled, almost one long, continuous sound. “Fucking _look_ at us, Dean.”

Dean says nothing, just stares at him.

“Nothing’s changed,” he said. “Everyone else has. Everything else is different, and we’re… we’re stuck in this… fucking _shithole_.”

Dean flinches. Adam doesn’t curse often. It hits harder when he does. “You wanna get out of here?” his older brother asks. ”We can leave. Bobby’s got a contact close—"

“And go where? Another shithole?” he’s crying, but he doesn’t care. He kicks at the tarmac underfoot. It feels good. He kicks again, and feels the impact shiver through his bones, bruising him from the inside. “It’s the same. It’s… it’s all the same. We’re so damaged, and I can’t _fix_ it--”

Dean looks small. It’s the first time Adam has seen his brother like this, but his heart is beating to fast and his head is too full of loud noise to stop now. “Dad’s _gone_ ,” Adam said. “What the hell are we even doing here?”

Dean looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought… I thought if I took you. If we were together again, dad would… come back. He’d find us.”

Adam stares at Dean. He knows that this is the plan. He had even trusted in it. The unspoken Wichester pact to stick together, to never face the demons alone. But the man who had taught them that was gone. He was leading them on a wild goose-chase across the states.

But Adam had had a taste of life with Bobby. Moving from state to state, finishing his last year of highschool on the road and searching for their father—it was too much. It was madness. “I don’t know how Sam did it so long.”

The moment he said it, he wished he could take it back. But he couldn’t and the silence hung between them. Still and heavy. “I’ll take you back to Florida. You can… you can finish school.”

 

###

THREE YEARS AGO

The threads of their shattered, shredded souls tangled. One was not more whole than the other. They were each half. With what they had learned in their separate and equal hells, time was no object. Like a cell splitting, like the evolution of an amoeba to rabbit, they had infinite variation.

“ _I don’t know you,” Adam said. “John Winchester barely came through town. My mom never talked about him. I died. Ghouls killed me, and I had heaven until you refused to fix your own mistakes. You dragged me to hell, Sam. You and Dean and your bullshit choices stuck me in a cage with Michael and Lucifer.”_

_“I loved you. I raised you,” Sam said. “We grew up on the road, and then I left you. I left you, Adam. I’m so sorry. Hate me. Hurt me. Forgive me. Please.”_

Neither and both. They created something new.

They were two suns crashing into each other. They were alone, together, spinning in the vastness of an empty dimension. They were one. A spiritual abomination.

They were Outcast.

 

### 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo! Sorry. I couldn't get through to a beta this morning... fanfiction was down... Anyway... I hope you like it.


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